


This Be The Verse

by commoncomitatus



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, Gen, Parental Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately follows "The Xena Scrolls".  In which Janice has a chip on her shoulder, Mel has a big mouth, and compromise is just something that happens to other people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

—

They scrounge up the dough for a motel room, because Mel can’t abide sleeping rough.

Seriously. She actually says that. _‘Abide’_ , all prim and proper, like some crap out of the Bible or something. _“It’s my complexion, you understand,”_ she explains, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt, and no, Janice doesn’t understand, not one bit, but good grief, it’s got to be easier to give in than spend half the night listening to her whine about it.

She should have expected something like this, really. They might have only just met, technically speaking, but some things are obvious right from the get-go, and this is one of them. Spoiled brats don’t do well with being uncomfortable, and Mel’s as spoiled as you can get. People like her, with their ladies’ shirts and their pencil skirts, don’t like being hungry or thirsty or cooped up, and they never listen to a good old-fashioned _‘sit down and shut up’_. It’s been maybe half a day since Mel Pappas walked into her life, and already she’s ignored more than forty different instructions.

Well. Thirty, at least.

“You’re gonna have to get used to it,” Janice mutters, kicking off her boots and sprawling out on the bed. “If you wanna stick around, that is. Can’t fancy it up in places like this every night.”

Mel ignores her. Of course she does. Apparently, preening in front of the mirror is more important than actually paying attention. Janice only wishes she was surprised.

The process is an arduous one, if Mel’s little sighs and groans are anything to go by. She’s taking stock of the damage to her clothes, the rips and tears left behind after Xena’s tussle with Ares, and from the sound of her she’s really not happy about it. Little surprise, given the state of them, though Janice can’t help appreciating the irony in her complaining. What’s the fate of the world next to a run in her stockings, right? 

“Well, I’ll be,” Mel says when she’s done huffing and shaking her head. “Did she _have_ to go and tear it up like that?”

Janice rolls her eyes. “If by ‘she’, you mean Xena,” she says, “then yeah, she did. Unless you’d sooner she let the god of war run around loose out here?”

Christ, she’s too sober to be having this conversation.

“Well, now, of course not,” Mel tuts, sounding anything but reassured. “But couldn’t she have just… oh, I don’t know… improvised or somethin’? You don’t find a fit this neat just anywhere, you understand…”

There it is again, _‘you understand’_ , and again Janice does not. “Clothes are clothes, Mel.”

Mel lets out a horrified squeak, like she can’t believe a woman in this day and age would dare to say such a blasphemous thing. Given that she was channelling a centuries-dead warrior princess barely two hours ago, Janice can’t help thinking that particular judgement is a little rich.

Well, let her gasp and squeak and say _‘oh my goodness’_ all she wants. It’s not like she’s the first broad who looked at Janice Covington like she just crawled out of a gutter, and she sure as hell won’t be the last. Goes with the territory, not dressing or talking or acting like a proper lady should. The modern world has a hell of a way to go, not that a dame like Mel would ever admit that.

Girls like her are a dime a dozen, with their ruffles and their finishing schools and their proper way of speaking, but real in-the-trenches working women like Janice are rarer than hens’ teeth. It’s not exactly new, the way Mel’s staring at her now, the way she tuts and sighs and says _‘you understand’_ after every goddamned sentence, the way she has no idea what Janice does and doesn’t understand. Scrolls or no damn scrolls, the two of them are worlds apart.

“Far be it from me to kick up a fuss…” Mel says after a moment, sounding about as sincere as Janice would have expected. Which is to say, not at all.

“Right.” Janice grunts, and fumbles in her pocket for a smoke. “Far be it from you.”

Mel opens her mouth when she lights up, like she’s just itching to say _‘do you have to do that in here?’_. Janice flashes her teeth, lifts her head just high enough for the light to catch her eyes. _Go ahead,_ she thinks, making it a challenge. _Make my day. See where all that ‘oh my goodness’ gets you._

Naturally, Mel knows better than to push her when she’s being glared at like that. Far be it from her to kick up a fuss, after all. She just goes back to mourning her precious skirt, like that was the target of her ire all along.

“I don’t suppose you got a sewing kit lying about in one of them there bags of yours?”

Janice fights the urge to throw something very heavy at someone decidedly less so. “What do you think?”

Mel shrugs. She’s sort of smiling now, like she’s well aware of how annoying she is, and is loving every second of it. “Just a question, Doctor. No harm in asking.”

Fair enough, Janice supposes, though of course she doesn’t say so out loud. She grunts again, underlining the conversation without needing to say anything, and looks around the room.

No two ways about it, the place is a dive. It’s as small as a box, as cramped and and crappy as a hole, and frankly it’s a damn miracle the two-bit jackass who runs this joint is allowed to call it a ‘room’ at all. Janice is pretty sure she’s seen roaches refuse to go near bigger holes than this.

Still, it’s more than she can really afford, and she can’t let herself forget that. She’s not like Mel, and she knows that she shouldn’t be throwing money at the wall like this. She’s way beyond the red line already, and somehow she doubts _‘I nuked my dig site to bury an ancient Greek god’_ will go over real well with the humourless hardasses waiting back home.

She might have the scrolls in her hands, might finally be on her way to clearing her father’s name, but she doesn’t have his lack of scruples when it comes to cash flow. He’d sell his own mother if he thought she’d fetch a good price, but his daughter isn’t like that at all, and she was tapped out long before she blew up all of her damn resources. Just her luck that morality skips a generation.

The room doesn’t boast much. There’s the mirror, the narrow cot-like bed, and a little table and chair pressed into a corner. If Janice was staying here by herself, it’d be the lap of luxury — she’s used to sleeping on a pallet on the floor of her tent, and it’s been weeks since she last caught sight of a mirror — but Mel makes things complicated. She’s used to real, proper luxury, the kind that Janice never really knew; she’s probably never even slept in a bed that didn’t come with feather pillows and a hand-stitched quilt.

It should make her angry. It _does_ make her angry. But it makes her soften too, if only a little bit. Mel might be spoiled, but that doesn’t mean adjusting is any easier. It should be, sure, but it’s not, and for all the parts of her that are green with envy at the sight of this prissy, preening brat, Janice gets the whole ‘different strokes for different folks’ thing. It’s not Mel’s fault she comes from where she does, after all.

 _Getting soft, Covington_ , she thinks with a sigh, then stubs out her cigar even though she’s barely taken a couple of drags.

“Ares roughed you up pretty good,” she says, because apparently normal small-talk about the weather and complexions is beyond her. “Or, well… I guess it’s Xena he was swinging at. But she was in you at the time, so it probably still counts.” She sighs, frustrated with herself; the point is a valid one, but her uncultured tongue makes everything sound so damn clumsy. “Need me to fix you up?”

Mel quirks a brow. “Why, Doctor Covington, is that a note of concern I hear?”

“Not a chance. If anything it’s a note of _‘you better not bleed on the carpet’_. Places like this charge for stains, you know.”

Mel probably wouldn’t know that, honestly. Janice would; she’s bled on enough carpets in her time. Still, Mel takes the new information in stride, lips quirking at the corners in what Janice would swear is a smirk.

“Well, then,” she says. “My mistake. It’s just so hard to tell with that silly accent of yours, you understand.”

Despite her sour mood, Janice laughs. She doesn’t mean to, but she can’t help herself. “Right,” she huffs. “ _My_ accent.”

Mel sobers, and the smirk eases into a genuine smile. “Well, anyway, it’s nothing. Don’t you go worrying yourself over me.”

“Do I look worried?”

Mel doesn’t say anything, but she raises her brows a little, like that’s answer enough. Janice is just about mature enough to pretend she doesn’t see it, or recognise what it means; she’s punched far tougher broads in the head for far less than looking at her funny, and her patience is way beyond thin by this point. All she wants is a couple of hours’ shut-eye so she can at least pretend to be a functional human being in the morning. Is that so damn much to ask for?

“I don’t suppose we’ll both fit in that contraption?”

Janice blinks. It takes her a long moment to realise that Mel’s talking about the bed. “Huh?”

“Well, I just mean, it’s awful small, and I’m not exactly…”

She clears her throat, gesturing to her height. Janice can’t say she’s really noticed it before now; she’s used to people towering over her, used to having to use her full height just to reach people’s chests. Granted, it’s usually men she’s forced to deal with in her line of work, but even by normal women’s standards she’s not exactly a prize of physical perfection. Dames like Mel with their curves and their legs that go on forever… well, they’re a pretty far cry from the short and stocky reflection that Janice would find in that stupid mirror.

With another unladylike grunt, she swings off the bed. She’s not the one who wanted the damn thing in the first place, after all. “Knock yourself out, sweetheart.”

Mel blinks at her, owlish and adorably befuddled. “You sure?” she asks, like she really expected Janice to put up a fight over some stupid half-stuffed cot. “I mean, you’re just a bit of a thing. Probably don’t take up much—”

“You finish that sentence, I’ll make you wish we left you in that tomb.” She grits her teeth, forces herself to soften just a little. “Look. You’re the one who couldn’t _abide_ sticking it out in the truck all night, remember? You’re the one who…”

_…who got possessed by the spirit of your ancient ancestor, then went toe-to-toe with the god of war._

It sounds really stupid put that way, even just in her head. She won’t ever say it aloud, of course, but it’s the truth, the bare bones of it right there. Some two-bit heel with a doctorate doesn’t really cut it next to the warrior princess of myth and history, and as much as Janice really wants to believe that she’s the important one in all this scroll business, deep down inside she knows that it’s not true. It’s not about Mel’s stupid complexion, or what she can or can’t abide. It’s not about _Mel_ at all.

She was Xena. Not just a few thousand years ago, but here and now and in the flesh. For a few minutes there, she really was her, truly and completely. How the hell is Janice supposed to deny her a bed or a room or whatever else when she’s seen her stand toe-to-toe with an ancient god?

She’s spent too long listening to her father talk about exactly this, too many years wasted and lost, drowned and died in a chorus of Xena’s name and Xena’s deeds and Xena’s legacy. Xena, Xena, Xena the only constant in her whole damn life. Her mother was long gone by the time she was old enough to care what the words meant, and her father’s lifestyle meant they never stuck around any place long enough for her to make a real friend. It was all she ever had, him and Xena.

Funny, the way things turn out. Xena was his obsession, not hers, but who’s the one who got to her in the end?

“Whatever,” she finishes at last, and cocks her head back towards the bed, grounding herself so much more than Mel. “Just take the damn thing before I change my mind.”

Mel’s already inching her way towards the bed, eyes as wide as a kid in a candy store. “My goodness,” she said, like Janice just handed over her own damn head or something. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Christ’s sake, it’s a bed, not a goddamned palace.” She tries to grin, but her face isn’t feeling very friendly right now. “Besides, you’re the delicate flower. I’m just the stiff who’d sleep on a rock like it’s a four-poster bed.”

Mel frowns, like she can’t believe such a thing is possible. “You’re a proper gentleman, Janice Covington.”

She means it kindly, Janice can tell, but reflex makes it sit sour in her stomach. It’s not the first time she’s been called something like that, a gentleman or a fella or one of the boys, but it’s really rare that they don’t make out like it’s a bad thing. The boys say it like a compliment shrouding an insult — _‘none of that girly stuff for you, eh, Jan?’_ , like she can’t do what she does and be a woman at the same time — and the dames say it like it makes her something unnatural, like it’s a personal slight against them that someone like her could be cut from the same cloth.

She’d expect that latter tone from Mel, to be honest, the emphasis hard on _gentleman_ to make it real clear she’s not a _lady_. Mel is definitely one, all straight lace and high heels, and that acid-sharp smile would fit real nicely on her mouth, but somehow when she says it the words don’t come out the way Janice is used to.

It shouldn’t taste as bitter as it does, not when she means it kindly. In any case, it’s true enough, and Janice has never been ashamed of what’s true. She’s _not_ a lady, and she never wanted to be. Not that it would’ve mattered much if she had; growing up like she did, she never stood a damn chance. As a kid she never had a female influence who stuck around more than a week, and the few dames she knew after she was grown weren’t exactly the type she’d care to emulate. Little chance of her turning into anything other than what she is, the wrong kind of gentleman doing the wrong kind of stuff, too much like her father in all the wrong ways. She drinks like a man, dresses like a man, works like a man; she smokes and spits and shoots, slings curses as quick as her whip… and yeah, she has a taste for the ladies. Little wonder they talk to her like she could never be one herself.

The truth isn’t bad in itself, but when they spin it like an insult it sticks between her ribs like a damn knife. Funny, how anything can hurt if they throw it hard and fast enough.

Mel doesn’t throw it hard, though, and she doesn’t mean for it to hurt. That’s funny too, and all the more so after watching Xena rip up her skirt and kick off her fancy heels. Xena could kill a man at a hundred paces with that chakram of hers, or even just her bare hands, but Mel’s the perfect little Southern belle, as sweet and simpering as anything. Looking at her now, it’s hard to imagine that just a couple of hours ago she was swinging a sword around without even breaking a sweat. It’s hard to be offended, too, when she’s smiling like that, all nice as pie, like _‘you’re a proper gentleman’_ really does mean exactly that.

“Nothing gentlemanly about it,” Janice mutters, because there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that she’ll say any of that out loud. “Just don’t want to waste my night listening to you whining, that’s all. Had a bellyful of that already, and I’m not exactly hungry for more.”

“Well, now.” She sounds genuinely affronted, almost angry, which is strange. She’s not really been quick to take offence up till this point. “Do forgive me for not being quite so worldly as the grave robber’s daughter.”

That does it. The rage comes out of nowhere, hot and sharp like a bullet to the chest, and suddenly it’s taking every ounce of her self-control to keep from storming over and grabbing Mel by the collar, shaking her until she trips over her own damn apologies. She wants to yell at her, maybe even throw a punch or two, but she’s not in the habit of hitting women who couldn’t hold their own against a fly. Xena might have been able to wipe the floor with her, and maybe there’s a part of Janice that wishes she was still around right now just so she’d have an excuse to cut loose and let off steam, but she’s not; the warrior princess is long gone now, and Mel’s got all the stamina of a flower. Janice has never been one for stomping on pretty things, at least not without an invitation, and so she swallows the urge to lash out and grits her teeth instead.

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” she snarls, and wonders if Mel realises how much she’s reining in.

“Nothin’ at all.” She says it quickly enough, but she doesn’t sound particularly contrite. “Just that we don’t all have your history of running all over the world on a whim.”

Right. Mel’s father might be renowned in his particular field, might even have spent some time out on the road back in the day, but somehow Janice doubts he would have dragged his little girl around with him. No doubt pretty little Mel grew up all nice and sheltered on some big ol’ plantation somewhere, nestled up all cozy and warm while Daddy Dearest rewrote the book on ancient syntax. It’s a nice life if you can get it, comfortable and safe, and it bothers Janice more than she’d care to admit, just how goddamn jealous it makes her.

“Yeah, well, get used to it,” she says, voice rough. “Like it or not, Mel Pappas, you’re in my world now.”

Mel’s brows crease into a baffled frown, like she can’t quite make sense of what she’s hearing. It shouldn’t be news by this point, at least not really; Janice hasn’t pulled her punches even once since they first met, and she’s not about to start now. Still, maybe this is kind of personal for Mel, in the same sort of way that it’s personal for Janice, because there’s a fire in her eye now that makes Janice think of Xena again, makes her remember the tomb and the scrolls and the chakram, makes her remember Ares and the way that Xena, in Mel’s body, took on a god without even trying.

“Is that so?” There’s a kind of challenge in her voice, too, a strength just like Xena’s. “I don’t recall signing on as your little employee, Doctor. Now, unless I’m mistaken, weren’t you the one who said ‘together’?”

“What I said,” Janice grits out, “was _‘you can give me a hand’_.”

“Well, now, that’s hardly fair, is it?”

“Never said a damn thing about fair.” She’s really pissed now, but not in the usual way. Usually she feels it like a burst of rage, rigged explosives with a finger on the detonator; this time it feels more like a slow-simmering spite, like every nerve in her body is seething. “I told you before: I didn’t spend my whole life working on this just to give it all up to the first pretty broad who comes along. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re Xena’s descendant or Xena’s reincarnated soul or what-the-hell-ever. This is my life’s work, goddammit, and I’m not about to sit back and let you screw it up.”

Mel stares at her for a long, long moment. Janice expects her to start shouting right back, or maybe just storm out, but she doesn’t do either. Too ladylike for such behaviour, Janice supposes.

“You know,” she says, like they’re talking about the goddamned weather; her voice is so sweet that it makes Janice want to scream. “I imagine that chip you’re carryin’ around on your shoulder must be getting awful heavy right about now.”

“I…” It’s very, very rare that someone leaves Janice Covington speechless, but this just about does it. “Shut up.”

“Mhm.” She’s so damn smug, like she thinks this is a victory or something. It’s _not_. “Well, now, since you’ve been so accommodating with these here sleeping arrangements, I’ll be a lady and let this little temper tantrum of yours slide.”

“You’re a real gem.”

Mel quirks a brow, and Janice hates how effortlessly that chastens her. “But don’t you go thinking you’re the only one with feelings, Janice Covington. And don’t you go thinking you’ll be spending the rest of this little partnership bossing me around like some kind of… of…”

Janice can think of a few words to end that sentence, but she keeps them to herself.

“Fine,” she says instead, because she has no intention of letting Mel see that she landed a hit or two. “Just… whatever you want, if it’ll stop you talking. Christ, didn’t your father ever teach you—”

“Now, you stop right there.”

The sharpness catches her surprise, and again Janice finds herself doing what she’s told almost without a thought. There’s so much she could say, so much she wants to say — _‘so it’s all right for you to take cheap shots at my father, but I’m not allowed to do the same back?’_ , like she’s not used that kind of two-faced double standard by now — but the words all die before she can get them out. Maybe she’s still catching shades of Xena in the way Mel’s voice gets all high and angry, or else maybe she’s more tired than she thought she was; either way, she finds that all of a sudden she doesn’t have the stomach for a fight. Weird, given that not ten seconds ago she was spoiling for one.

“Fine,” she says again, hating how defeated she sounds. “Enjoy the bed.”

She’s already got her boots halfway laced up before Mel notices, and realises that she doesn’t plan on sticking around. “My goodness, what in the world are you doing now?”

Janice doesn’t look up. “Gonna go sleep in the truck,” she says, like it’s obvious. “You know, like I wanted to in the first place. Beats slumming it on the floor listening to you snoring.”

“I’ll have you know, a lady doesn’t _snore_.”

“Sure she doesn’t.” She rolls her eyes, finishes lacing her boots. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. Last thing either of us needs is to spend the whole night sniping at each other.”

“That’s awful self-sacrificing of you,” Mel says dryly.

“Like hell it is.”

It’s really not. Honestly, she just wants a few minutes of peace and quiet, a few minutes when it’s just her and her thoughts, the good and the bad, without anyone looking over her shoulder and saying _‘you understand’_. If that means spending the night with her head on the steering wheel while some preening Southern brat sleeps like a baby in a room she’s paying for… well, that’s just the way it goes. Better than shooting Mel in her sleep.

Definitely better than sticking around long enough to say _‘I’m sorry’_.

*

The truck might not be comfortable, but at least it’s quiet.

She doesn’t sleep deeply; she never has. Her world’s too dangerous for that kind of thing, so she sleeps like she always does, with one eye open and one hand on her holster, ready to bolt upright at the least little sound. Sweet dreams are an alien concept to someone who’s spent as long as she has dodging bullets and waiting for the other shoe to drop, but her way has served her just fine up till now. Motel or no motel — Mel or no goddamned Mel — Janice Covington isn’t dumb enough to trust her safety to anyone other than herself.

She wakes early, blinded by the sun rising over the dashboard, and spits out a handful of curses when she straightens up. Her neck is stiff as hell, and her back’s spasming in about four different places all at once. That’s all Mel’s fault, obviously, and the thought of spending more time with the woman chases away what little good humour the night’s peace and quiet might have given her. It’s gonna be a hell of a day.

She stalks upstairs to their room, raps loudly on the door, and calls Mel’s name in a tone that makes it real clear she’s in no mood for fooling around. “C’mon! We’re burning daylight!”

No answer.

That sets off klaxons in her head right away. Mel’s not the kind of broad to leave a challenge unanswered, at least not from Janice’s limited experience with her. Always one to assume the worst, Janice remembers yesterday’s little tête-à-tête with Smythe’s goons, stepping into her tent and finding the bastards trying to take advantage of Mel’s innocent nature. The poor woman had no idea what she was walking into, and Janice shudders to think what would’ve happened if she hadn’t shown up when she did. 

The same feeling surges up in her again now. She and Mel have only known each other a day, but that doesn’t mean she wants the poor dame’s blood on her hands. Heart in her mouth, gun in one hand and whip in the other, she shoulders the door open and storms inside.

The room’s empty. No Mel, but no signs of a struggle either. Nothing at all.

“Mel?” she calls, and startles herself with how high and frightened her voice sounds. “For cryin’ out loud… _Mel_!”

Bed’s empty, too. It’s clearly been slept in, all rumpled with the sheets kicked off, and honestly the sight of it so untidy only makes the panic rise that much higher. She’d half-expected that Mel, fancy-pants that she is, would have turned the mattress and fluffed the pillows herself the very second she fell out of bed. Anything to keep from kicking up a fuss, isn’t that what she said?

But no. The bed’s a mess, empty and unmade, and Mel… _Mel_ …

…is stepping out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel.

_Oh, hell._

Janice’s jaw hits the floor; about half a second later — no doubt in a fit of startled shock — the towel does the same.

Mel, admittedly somewhat understandably, screams the place down.

“Sweet merciful heavens!” It’s a slightly less colourful expression of Janice’s own feelings on the subject. “What in the good Lord’s name do you think you’re _doing_ , Janice Covington?”

She’s standing there half frozen, like she can’t figure out what’s the more pressing issue, covering her modesty or closing the space between them and slapping Janice senseless. Not wanting to leave that particular decision to chance, Janice scrambles backwards, flushing and floundering, trying to apologise without actually saying she’s sorry, and generally making a complete ass out of herself.

Apparently this is something that’s going to happen a lot from now on, Mel leaving her speechless and utterly out of her depth, because here she is again, twice in just a few hours, choking and spluttering and flailing for words, like the sneaky little broad has her wrapped around her little finger.

“I didn’t mean…” she gets out. “You were… there was… you didn’t answer! Jesus, you scared me half to death!”

“Now why on Earth would I do that?” Apparently the modesty wins out, because she crouches to retrieve the towel and Janice finds herself blessedly un-slapped. “It’s not like I was being shot at. I was in the bath, for pity’s sake!”

“Well, how was I supposed to…” She trails off, blinks maybe a dozen times. “Wait a sec. There’s a _bath_?”

“Why, of course there is, you silly thing.” She points with the hand that isn’t holding up the towel, gesturing at the bathroom. “You think that there door is just for decoration?”

Janice flushes, this time for reasons that have nothing to do with Mel’s modesty. “That’s not… I didn’t…”

“I must say,” Mel mutters, adjusting the towel a little bit, “you’re getting less gentlemanly by the second.”

“You’d sooner I left you in here by yourself?” Janice snaps, frustrated and humiliated in equal measure. “Jesus, Mel, for all I knew you could’ve had a gun to your neck!”

“Held by who? A renegade bar of soap?”

“How the hell should I know?” Her voice is shaking, and so are her shoulders. It’s stupid, and she’s probably making a scene, but she really doesn’t care. “Just because you’ve never had to dodge a bullet doesn’t mean I haven’t.”

The admission comes much harder than she expected it to, like a choke or a groan, and it takes the strength right out of her legs. She doesn’t have the excuse of exhaustion this time — the day’s just started, and thus far without any immortal gods or spirits of ancient warrior princesses — but just like it did last night she feels the fight bleeding out of her all over again.

She feels like she’s spitting into the wind, like she’s trying to fight a whole army all by herself, and she’s not equipped to deal with the look on Mel’s face, the way her whole body goes limp and loose like she’s just been punched in the gut too, like she’s seeing more than Janice wants her to, more than she’d ever want anyone to.

“Ah.” It doesn’t sound like a word, but it feels like an awful lot of them. “Well, goodness, when you put it that way…”

Janice swallows very hard. She’s starting to get angry again, but this time she can’t blame Mel for it. “Forget it,” she says. “I screwed up, okay? I should’ve just left you in here, to hell with the consequences. Shouldn’t have even bothered trying to do the right thing. That what you wanted to hear?”

“Well, now…”

“Fine. Yeah, that’s just fine.” She spins on her heels and stalks back to the door. “You take your time. Go back to prettying yourself up, or whatever the hell you fancy dames do in there.” It embarrasses her more than she’d care to admit that she really has no idea what that is. “I’ll just… ah, hell, I’ll go wait in the truck.”

 _Again_ , she thinks, but has just enough restraint not to say it out loud.

She’s pretty sure Mel calls after her as she storms out, but she doesn’t look back and she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t trust herself not to start blushing again.

*

It’s maybe twenty minutes before Mel shows her face.

She’s dressed now, thankfully, in another pencil skirt and working girl’s shirt much like yesterday’s. It’s a different colour, though, all pastel pink and navy blue, and apparently that makes it count as an entirely new outfit. Janice wonders how many she has, all crisp and clean and folded up in that tiny little suitcase of hers. The thought of it makes her feel awkward again, and self-conscious; for her own part, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t own more than three different shirts, and at least two of them are riddled through with holes. She wonders how long they’ll spend together before Mel notices that, before she starts clicking her tongue and insists that they go shopping for something more befitting a lady. Good luck to her, Janice thinks, if she ever tries that.

As well as the new outfit, she’s got a new look on her face, contrite and just a little embarrassed. It’s a good look for her, and much better than all that self-righteous smugness.

She doesn’t get in the truck because that would be too simple, but she’s off and running, spouting feelings before Janice has even got the window cranked halfway down to hear her out.

“Listen, Janice, I’m real sorry…”

 _So am I_ , Janice thinks, but she says “You should be,” which isn’t really the same thing at all.

Mel rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue. “I shouldn’t’ve bitten your head off like I did. You being all sweet and worrying about little ol’ me… and here I am, accusing you of being less of a gentleman for it.”

“I’m not a goddamned gentleman, Mel.” She doesn’t know why it feels so important all of a sudden. It just does. “I’m as much a woman as you are.”

Mel frowns a bit, like she’s not really convinced, but to her credit she keeps her opinion to herself. “Well, be that as it may, it was unbecoming of me to snap at you when you were just trying to help.” Her lips twitch and lift into a little half-smile. “Nearly as unbecoming, dare I say, as all that staring you did.”

“I didn’t _stare_ ,” Janice huffs. “I was just… surprised. You were naked, for Christ’s sake.”

“And here was me thinkin’ you were a woman of the world.” She chuckles, all prim and proper. “Why, who would’ve thunk that it’d only take a lady’s unmentionables to make you blush?”

“Didn’t blush either.”

(She did, rather a lot, but that’s beside the point.)

Mel shakes her head, like she’s never seen anything as ridiculous as this. Given her sheltered little upbringing, it’s entirely possible she hasn’t.

“Well, now,” she says, exaggeratedly coy. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear big bad Janice Covington is _embarrassed_.”

“Try ‘impatient’.” She is; it’s not a complete lie. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s true,” Mel says, and flashes that smile again, the one that makes Janice feel like the whole world is crumbling underneath her feet. “But we’re not going anywhere until we’ve had a good, hearty breakfast.”

Janice groans. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Not a bit of it.” She looks serious, too, like she’s liable to lash out with her purse or something if she doesn’t get her way. If Janice wasn’t already on the wrong side of mortified, it would almost be hilarious. “I don’t work on an empty stomach, and neither should you.”

“What are you, my mother?”

It comes out automatically, and it’s only once she hears the words spoken that she realises it cut her a whole lot deeper than it did Mel. She feels herself stiffen, every muscle going tight as a whip inside of her, and she hates that Mel seems to notice. Worse, she hates that she seems to _understand_.

She wonders, briefly, where Mel was yesterday when Xena was inside of her, if she was still there somewhere, alert and aware and listening to everything going on around her. She wonders if she heard all the bitterness, the gritted-out confessions, the resentment and the shame and the years of forced-down hurt.

 _‘My father’s a thief. My mother, she ran out on us…’_ It’s humiliating enough that she said it to a centuries-dead warrior princess; saying it to someone like Mel would be the end of her.

In any case, if Mel is aware of all that, she doesn’t say anything about it. Maybe she figures Janice would sock her in the jaw for trying, or maybe she has a little more tact than Janice has given her credit for; either way, she shrugs the issue off like it was nothing worth noting at all. A flicker of empathy deep behind those startling eyes of hers, and then it’s gone with a shrug and another devastating smile. If she were anyone other than Mel Pappas, Janice might almost be grateful.

“I dare say I’m no such thing,” Mel says, choosing her words a little too carefully. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? Now, unless I’m very much mistaken—”

“Are you ever?” Janice counters bitterly.

“Hush, you. Unless I’m very much mistaken, there’s an adorable little diner not two miles that-a-way. The way you drive, it won’t take us but a minute to get there.” Janice opens her mouth to point out that she’s a fantastic driver, thank you very much, but of course Mel doesn’t stop talking long enough to give her an opening. “A hearty breakfast, Doctor Covington, or else you’ll be translating your own gosh-darn scrolls.”

Honestly, at this point, it’s almost tempting to do just that. Janice might not be the most accurate interpreter in the world, but it’s got to be better than being driven mad by these endless irrational demands for things like sleep and sustenance.

Well, not really. Professor Pappas — the real one — was her father’s contact, not hers, but Janice inherited him along with everything else when he died. Mel might not be the leading expert her father was, but hell, Janice could say the same thing about herself. She’ll never compare to her own father, not if she lives to be a hundred, and not just in the obvious way. Mel was right when she said they were both living in their fathers’ shadows, and what kind of a damn hypocrite would Janice be if she didn’t give her a chance to step out of it?

“Fine,” she says at last. “But be quick about it. I don’t have all day.”

Mel’s face lights up, dazzlingly bright, like a kid who’s just been promised a new toy if she behaves. “Yes, ma’am.”

*

Mel gets her hearty breakfast. Janice is content to drink her weight in coffee.

“That’s not gonna keep you going, you know,” Mel comments when she grabs her second refill. “You’ll just get all jittery and silly, and then where will we be?”

She’s slicing up some fancy-looking bread roll, all delicate and ladylike and ridiculous. _It’s bread_ , Janice thinks, annoyed. _Eat it or don’t, but stop playing with the damn thing_.

“I don’t get jittery,” she says. “I get focused.”

“Now, why do I find that so hard to believe?” She’s enjoying this, Janice can tell; now that she’s got her stupid breakfast, she’s as happy as a clam. “And anyhow, surely someone of your education has to realise that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The good Lord knows, you need to take care of yourself out on those digs of yours. Why, in that heat…”

“You call this heat?” Janice blurts out.

“Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”

Janice grumbles something less than polite under her breath, and makes the coffee Irish. A splash or two of whiskey might not make her any less jittery, or any more focused, but at least it’ll keep her from tearing her hair out. She’s not often in the habit of drinking before noon, at least not without a damn good reason, but she’s pretty sure it’s the only way she’ll survive the rest of the morning, much less the day. If Mel keeps talking like this — and if Janice has learned anything about her, she surely will — then lowered inhibitions are the way to go.

Mel’s looking at her like she’s just shot a man at ten paces. No surprise there, but Janice is in no mood for another of her sweet-talking _‘oh my goodness’_ lectures.

“Go on,” she grumbles, scowling from under the brim of her hat. “Say it. _‘Are you sure you wanna be doing that?’_ or _‘it’s not even noon!’_ or whatever the hell you’re thinking.”

“Wasn’t thinkin’ a darn thing,” Mel says.

“Sure you weren’t.”

Mel raises one perfect eyebrow right up to her hairline, then turns her attention back to her breakfast, as though she really doesn’t care what Janice puts into her body. It’s bull, of course — she wouldn’t be fussing like she is if she didn’t care — but Janice appreciates that she knows where to draw the line. She drinks deep of her coffee, and makes a great big show of relishing the added kick.

To her credit, Mel doesn’t rise to the bait; much to Janice’s combined relief and disappointment, her bread roll is more important. There’s a bunch of little pots and packets that came with the stuff, jams or jellies or some other crap that should probably be rationed a whole lot tighter than it is round here, and she picks out one labelled _‘preserve’_. Janice has no idea what the hell preservation has to do with breakfast foods, but she frankly doesn’t care enough to ask. Besides, as long as Mel’s mouth is full, she won’t be _talking_.

“Now, then, about these scrolls…”

Or, apparently, she will. Great.

Janice sighs, and pours a little more whiskey into her cup. It’s considerably more ‘Irish’ than ‘coffee’ at this point, but she really doesn’t give a rat’s ass. “It’s simple,” she says, moody. “You translate, I publish. You really need me to spell it out for you?”

“Mhm. And can I assume that my name will also be on this little publication of yours?”

 _No chance,_ Janice thinks, but she knows better than to say it straight. “We’ll negotiate.”

“M _hm_.”

She doesn’t need to say _‘you’re talking crap’_ ; it’s right there in her tone, and somehow that makes it a million times more infuriating than if she’d just come out and said the words in the first place. Janice can feel the cup start to shake in her hand, and only dimly registers the fact that it’s probably because her hand is shaking too. She’s so quick to anger, and it’s always so damn hard to rein it in; what little is left of her self-control is being slowly eaten away by the caffeine and the liquor, and it’s real hard to look Mel in the face right now and not want to punch her.

“You listen to me,” she says, clenching her teeth so her jaw won’t shake too. “This is my work. This is my goddamned _life_.”

“Oh?” Mel’s voice is real high, almost dangerous now. “Silly me, thinking it was your daddy’s.”

“Shut up!”

It’s supposed to come out like a warning, _‘shut up or I’ll sock you’_. She wants to, she really does; the ache to throw a punch, to reassert herself through violence like she always has before, is almost overwhelming, and she hates that once again Mel squashes all those feelings down with just a look. Janice might be angry, might even feel violent, but she doesn’t sound that way at all.

She doesn’t sound like she’s threatening Mel; she sounds like she’s _begging_ her, like she’s just as small and useless as Gabrielle in those stupid scrolls. It’s bad enough that she wants to scream, that she wants to lose her temper and start throwing things, but so much worse than that is the way that she can’t. Her throat’s closing up, her eyes stinging with something she doesn’t want to name, and even now she can’t get away from what words like Mel’s still make her feel.

It happens all the time, after all. People using her father’s reputation against her, twisting the name Harry Covington like a knife in her gut, and she’s so damn good at playing the game their way because she always gives them the reaction they want. Smythe tried it yesterday, so damn sure that he could get her in his pocket because she was the daughter of a money-grabbing thief with no scruples. He wasn’t the first to see her that way, and he won’t be the last; Janice has been ignoring the insults and the laughter for as long as she can remember.

She’s used to getting angry about it. She’s used to seeing red, cracking her whip or raising her gun, snarling out threats with a cigar between her teeth and spitting on their boots when they don’t run away fast enough. She’s used to firing shots, both literal and figurative, used to doing whatever it takes to make those bastards shut up. They don’t hurt so much any more, or so she tells herself, but they still make her mad as hell. She’s never had to flounder like this before, never had to dig down and search for the anger; it always just _hit_.

It doesn’t hit now, though. It’s not anger she’s feeling when she knocks back the last of her coffee and slams the cup down on the counter. She’s not mad when she says _‘shut up’_ , and when she raises her shaking, white-knuckled fist she finds that she doesn’t really want to sock Mel after all. All those feelings that have always come so easily are gone from her now, and it takes her a long, painful moment to figure out why.

Thing is, Mel isn’t saying it like an insult. She doesn’t smirk like Smythe, or laugh or pull some twisted anecdote out of her ass; she doesn’t do any of the things Janice is so used to dealing with when someone mentions her father’s name. Mel doesn’t say _‘your daddy’_ like she means _‘that two-bit crook who’d steal candy from babies given half a chance’_. She says it like she means _‘but what about you?’_.

No-one has ever talked to her like that before. No-one’s ever said her father’s name like it doesn’t matter as much as her own. They’ve always been so connected, so intrinsically a part of each other, she’s just taken it as red that his name will always come first. It always has to her; why wouldn’t it be that way with everyone else too? The insults, the pettiness, the cruelty… it was always aimed at them both, the sins of the father and the not-so-prodigal daughter who had to carry their weight.

 _Your father was a thief and a loser, and so are you._ That’s the heart and guts of it. It always has been, and it always will be. Janice might have been calling Smythe’s bluff yesterday at the dig, but there was more than a grain of truth when she turned to Mel and said _‘guess it’s in my blood’_.

It is in her blood. It made her, turned her into what she is, an angry broad who talks and acts and thinks like a man, a hair-trigger temper in a two-dollar shirt, trawling the world for someone else’s secrets because they meant something to some two-bit loser the rest of the world hates. It made her who she is, Harry Covington’s blood, and she has spent so damn long fighting that. For his sake and her own, she’s spent what feels like forever trying to prove those bastards wrong, prove that he was more than the cheating, thieving low-life they all think he was. She has to. She _has to_ , because if she can’t prove that, then how the hell is she supposed to prove that she’s not exactly the damn same?

It’s all she’s ever been, the grave robber’s daughter, the shortass with a short fuse just waiting for someone to name the right price. Just like dear old Dad.

Mel’s looking at her like she doesn’t see any of that stuff, though. She’s looking at her like she doesn’t care one bit about Harry Covington or his reputation. She knows all about it, sure, but it doesn’t matter to her like it does to Janice, and when she leans back in her chair, still holding her fancy little bread roll, the look on her face has nothing to do with any of this. It’s not about what Janice’s father did; it’s about what _they’re_ going to do, or could do if only Janice had the guts to put his name behind her. It’s sickening, that look, and scary as hell.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Mel heaves a sigh. “Sorry,” she says, and for once she sounds like she means it. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. It’s just… Lord above, Janice, when are you gonna let go of all this nonsense?”

“It’s not nonsense.” The word is a snarl, choked out over years of poison and bitterness. “Not to me.”

“Not _that_ nonsense.” She says it like it’s obvious. “Heaven knows you’re not the first gal to spend her life in her daddy’s shadow. Heck, you’re not even the first to get hurt by it… though I’d wager you like to think you are.”

To be honest, Janice kind of _has_ always thought that, but she’s not about to admit it now. “What then?”

Mel smiles, then sighs again. “It’s this other nonsense I’m talkin’ about,” she says. “This silly business where you have to be in charge every gosh-darn minute of the day. You sign me up for a partnership, then turn around in the very next second with this _‘it’s my livelihood’_ bluster of yours. That chip on your shoulder may be heavy, and I don’t doubt it’s been mighty exhausting, carryin’ it around on your lonesome for so long… but there’s no excuse for bad manners. It don’t sit right, and I won’t stand for it.”

 _You’ve got to be kidding,_ Janice thinks again, though she doesn’t say that either. She just shrugs and says, “Fine by me.”

Mel quirks a brow. “You mind repeatin’ that?”

“You heard me. You don’t like it, that’s just fine by me. Airfield’s that way.” She still doesn’t sound angry like she wants to, though; she just sounds tired. “You’re the one who wanted to stick around. I’m doing you a favour, remember?”

“I remember no such thing, Janice Covington, and I’ll thank you to take a civil tone.” It’s almost comedic, the way she talks like a schoolteacher, like Janice is some troubled teen waiting to get her knuckles rapped. “Now, you listen here. I know you wanna believe you’re the lynchpin in this whole affair, but you’re not, and whether you care to admit it or not, you need my help. You’d never have found your blasted scrolls in the first place if it hadn’t been for me and… and _Xena_.”

The name makes Janice swallow, makes her mouth go desert dry. “You—”

“Hush, now.” She means it, too, eyes flashing and everything. It’s nothing like the way Xena talked, not really, but still it’s hard not to think of her now that the name is back on her tongue. “You can bluster and swagger and pretend to be a hero all you like, but you ain’t gonna change the fact that those scrolls are a darn sight more mine than yours.”

“What, just because—”

“Just because Xena’s my ancestor? Just because I had her soul inside of me? Darn right.” She doesn’t soften, not exactly, but her voice drops an octave or two just the same, like she’s trying to take her own advice and keep a civil tone. “Good Lord, do you really think this isn’t personal for me now too? I do declare, it’s like you got nothing between your ears but angst and rage.”

Honestly, sometimes Janice feels that way about herself too. Not that Mel’s earned the right to know that, of course.

“You’d never even heard of the scrolls before yesterday,” she points out quietly.

“Arriving late don’t make it any less of a party, now, does it?” She’s angry, but she’s better at holding it under control than Janice; that’s infuriating too, in its own way. “I’ve heard of ’em now. And I know what I felt when Xena was inside of me. That counts for just as much as your little lifelong quest.”

“The hell—”

“Now, I believe I said ‘hush’. This isn’t just about you any more, much as I’m sure you wish it was. And if you think for one gosh-darn minute that I’m gonna sit here all meek and quiet-like while you talk to me like you’ve been doing up till now, you got no idea who you’re dealing with.” At this point, Janice can actually believe that, though she doesn’t get the chance to say so. Mel’s still running her mouth. “These scrolls… they’re not poker chips. You can’t just toss ’em down onto the table and hope no-one calls your bluff.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Janice insists. “This is about _history_ , Mel.”

“I’m sure you believe that,” Mel says. She sighs, softening almost completely. “Janice, sugar…”

“Don’t call me that.”

Mel purses her lips, but doesn’t apologise. “Look. You can show off all you like about how this means the world to you and your daddy, but it was _me_ Xena was inside. Not you and not him. And I’m sure that this little discovery is a real important thing for your family, but that there warrior princess was a part of _mine_ , and that’s important too. You can try to cut me down or make me small, or whatever it is you think you have to do to make yourself feel all high-and-mighty and important, but it ain’t just your blood we’re dealing with any more.”

Janice grunts. She can’t very well deny it. “Your point?”

“Point is, I think you’re a better person than you give yourself credit for. Lord, I hope you are.” She sighs again, covers it over with a bite of her bread roll. “I may not know you from Adam, Doctor Covington, but I do know that a woman who’ll spend her whole life trying to prove that her daddy wasn’t a liar or a thief isn’t likely to be the kind of woman who’d try to cut some other poor soul out of their family history.” She smiles. It’s supposed to be all sweet and innocent, Janice can tell, but it’s not; it’s dazzling, and it makes her head ache. “Would you, now?”

Janice swallows hard, but doesn’t say anything for some time. It’s infuriating, the way Mel keeps cutting through her defences like they’re nothing, like she really is still Xena and Janice really is just the useless tag-along Gabrielle. It makes her feel like a kid all over again, following behind her father and not understanding anything. It’s maddening, but at the same time it stops her from getting mad. It makes her feel a little like she’s floating, caught between what she wants to feel about Mel and what she does feel when she looks at her and remembers when she was as Xena, the power and the passion and all the rest of it lighting up inside of her from some other place.

Even in Mel, Xena was a force of nature, a living, breathing revenant from ancient history, and it’s hard not to look at Mel as she is now without remembering how she was then, without knowing that she had that force of nature inside of her, that any moment she might turn around and become Xena again. All Janice has inside of her is a worthless, stupid sidekick who couldn’t even beat up a housefly; if she wants answers or inspiration, she’s sure as hell not gonna find them in herself.

That makes her jealous. It makes her lash out, treat Mel more spitefully than she might treat anyone else. Janice Covington isn’t exactly a please-and-thank-you kind of girl, even at the best of times, but she’d be the first to admit that she’s stepped over the line more than once in the short time since Mel Pappas stumbled into her life.

Ironic, that the reason she wants to keep her around is exactly the same as the reason why she keeps trying to push her away. The part of her that was awed by what she saw of Xena in the tomb, the part that aches to see her again, that feels this strange soul-deep connection to the warrior princess, is so close to the part of her that resents Mel for being so much bigger and better than she herself will ever be.

Of all the things she refused to inherit from her father, there’s no denying she got his ego.

“What do you want from me?” she asks at last, and surprises herself by realising that the answer might actually mean something to her. “You want me to call you ‘partner’? Ask your opinion on every little thing we do? Give you equal credit for my life’s work?” She shakes her head, not even giving Mel a chance to answer. “You know that’s not gonna happen.”

“Oh, I’m sure I do know that,” Mel says, but she doesn’t sound as forceful or Xena-like as she did a moment ago.

“So what, then? What the hell do you want from me?”

“A little _respect_ , Doctor Covington.” Her eyes are shining again, but it’s different. Soft like the rest of her, but they catch the light in a way that feels almost preternatural. “Is that so much to ask for?”

 _Yeah, it is,_ Janice thinks, but it doesn’t seem fair to say so without explaining why.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she hears herself say. “You with your castles in the sky and your spoiled, sheltered little life. Bet you were told you could do anything you set your mind to. Bet they all told you how special you were.”

“Well…” She doesn’t exactly confirm it, but she’s looking a little guilty, and that’s all Janice needs.

“Yeah, I thought so. You got no idea what it’s like out here in the trenches. You got no idea.” It’s clumsy, just like every time she tries to make a speech, but she doesn’t care. “Dammit, Mel, I’ve spent my whole life being told I’m not worth anything. I’ve spent every goddamn minute trying to prove those self-righteous assholes wrong, and what happens when I finally get those scrolls in my hand?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t—”

“I find out they were right all along.” Maybe Mel was right about the coffee making her jittery; it’d sure explain why she’s shaking right now. “Those scrolls are _history_ , Mel. Real, honest-to-God _history_. And history is telling me the same damn thing I’ve been hearing all my life. I’m the useless tag-along, and some other sucker is the goddamned hero.”

Mel flounders, visibly struck. “Now, I wouldn’t put it like that, exactly.”

“Why not?” She shakes her head. “It’s the truth, ain’t it?”

Mel doesn’t answer. She looks like she wants to, but apparently her talent for talking has finally run away from her, and she doesn’t have any ladylike way of dealing with this. It gives Janice some small sense of vindication, of being right all along if even Mel can’t find a way of arguing her point. At the same time, paradoxically, it makes her feel about two inches tall, because how screwed up must she be that even Mel ‘could talk her way out of a foxhole’ Pappas can’t find a way to move this thing along? It’s like a double-edged sword, the smugness of being right and the pain of being right about _this_. Truth is, she’s really not sure she wants to be right, but she can’t resist the thrill of a victory. Bitter and worthless though it might be, at least she got one.

After a long moment, Mel gives up and goes back to her breakfast. She slathers some more of the inappropriately-labelled ‘preserve’ on her bread roll, and chews with a sad, lonely look on her face.

It’s a good excuse not to talk, and Janice takes the opportunity to brood. She stares into her empty coffee cup, weighs up the pros and cons of grabbing another refill. It’s tempting — more whiskey this time, and less coffee — but she doesn’t do it. She doesn’t want Mel to know that this crap is getting to her, doesn’t want her to see that she needs the pick-me-up, that she isn’t the kind of person who can talk things out and magically feel better.

It’s all right if Mel thinks she’s angry; she _is_ angry. It’s okay if she thinks she’s frustrated and bitter that this South Carolina no-name swept in and stole all her thunder. That’s true enough too, and she’s just about childish enough to admit it. It’s just fine if she thinks this is all petty and stupid, that Janice Covington is just some ego-driven maniac who never evolved past puberty and never learned to share her toys. All those things are peachy keen, but it’d damn near kill her if Mel realised that maybe it’s not just about that, that maybe this actually _hurts_.

Not that there’s any point in keeping it to herself. Mel sees through her like she’s made of glass. She’s looking at her real intently, and when she’s finally finished with her damn breakfast she says her name so soft and so sweet that the sound of it hurts too.

“Janice.”

She clenches her teeth until her jaw aches. “Christ, what is it now?”

Mel’s fingers are shaking, hovering in the space between them, but she doesn’t touch her. “You’re not alone.”

It comes from nowhere, unexpected and seemingly apropos of nothing, but it resonates with something inside Janice, a place she can’t quite reach. It tastes like a memory, like the echo of a moment she knows she never lived. She doesn’t understand it, and it frightens her.

She closes her eyes, forces back the discomfort, refuses to give in to all the not-so-uncomfortable things it makes her feel.

“Maybe not,” she says, real low. “But I’m no-one’s goddamned sidekick."

“Well, now, I don’t recall anyone asking you to be.”

That’s true, but it doesn’t help. She wants to get up, storm out, leave Mel here with her stupid bread roll and her stupid ‘preserves’, just pack up the scrolls and disappear. She wants to find another translator, one with less baggage, less _Xena_. She wants to do a lot of things, sensible, smart things, things that would save her a whole mess of trouble, but she doesn’t. And she has no idea why.

“You’re a few sticks short of a bundle,” she says; it’s the understatement of the century. “You know that?”

“That’s as may be. But I’m sure I’m not the only one.” She chuckles, then sobers. “Listen, Janice. You’re the one with that big ol’ chip on your shoulder. You’re the one building mountains out of some silly little bit of dirt. Me… I’m just trying to help you out without getting my head bit off.”

“You’re trying to take credit for my scrolls.”

“ _Our_ scrolls.” She shakes her head, somewhere between amusement and frustration; Janice is just self-aware to know what it’s like, talking to her. Poor dame must feel like she’s throwing herself against a wall. “My goodness, that head of yours is harder than cement.”

In spite of herself, Janice chuckles too. Mel has been here maybe ten minutes, but she’s got her pegged better than all those damn bastards put together. Honest to God, she’s not sure if she loves that or hates it.

“Maybe,” she admits. “But you’re backing the wrong horse if you think you’re gonna change that.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Mel says. “I swear. I’m just tryin’ to figure out what the heck got your panties all bunched up in the first place.” It comes out surprisingly crude given that the worst language she’s used thus far is _‘goodness’_ , and Janice blinks her surprise. Mel shrugs it off, presses on. “Now, here I thought this whole little adventure was about you proving that them there scrolls existed. You got that, didn’t you?”

“Sure. But—”

“Well, then, what does it matter if it’s got my name on it too? Not like I was lobbying to take yours away or something. Why’s it such a gosh-darn _issue_?”

“It’s not an _issue_.” It is, sort of, but Mel doesn’t need to know that. “It’s just… ah, forget it. A straight-laced broad like you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Well, no, I’d imagine not. But I dare say I’m not the only one. Ain’t no-one short of a mind-reader could understand what’s going through your head, Janice Covington.”

Janice doesn’t point out that she prefers it that way. “Take it or leave it,” she says, and pulls down her hat until it covers her eyes. “You don’t like it, you can take a hike.”

“Now, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that was a challenge.”

It wasn’t. Not even close. Still, though, for all her bravado Janice doesn’t have the heart to say so.

She’s not stupid. She knows perfectly well what she’s like, the kind of person she is. She knows that Mel’s been practically saint-like in her patience thus far, knows that she’s been spitting in the wind just trying to get a little communication.

Janice isn’t an easy person to deal with, no more so than her father was, and she knows it. She doesn’t offer kindness or compassion, and she doesn’t take it either. She doesn’t trust, she doesn’t share, and she doesn’t give away anything away that she can’t take back in a pinch. She might not be the thief her father was, but she’s spent too long living hand to mouth to ever trust someone else’s way. She’s exactly the worst kind of partner for someone as sweet and well-meaning as Mel Pappas, and Mel would have to be a damned fool not to have figured that out already.

But she’s still here. That’s the kicker, the part that makes no sense. She’s still here, still pushing back every time Janice tries to push her around, still holding her ground like she really believes it’s hers to hold on to. She has to know that Janice will die on this hill if that’s what it takes, has to know that she’s too stubborn, too arrogant, too damn _angry_ to do anything else, but still she tries, still she sticks around, still she keeps making her silly little demands. Had she been anyone else, Janice would have sent her packing long before now.

She doesn’t, though, and not for want of trying. Every time she starts, every time she says _‘take a hike’_ or _‘I don’t need you’_ , something stops her before she can turn it into an order. She doesn’t have the heart or she doesn’t have the energy or she just flat-out _doesn’t_ , and there’s a small voice in the back of her head telling her it has to be more than just the Xena thing.

Mel is infuriating to someone like Janice, someone who loves picking fights and hates being told what to do, but still, just as surely as Mel’s sticking around, Janice is letting her get away with it. Every time she feels her fuse getting short, something happens to cut it off before she starts throwing punches or slinging curses, and that’s really, really new. No-one’s ever managed to temper her temper like that. No-one’s ever stuck around long enough to try, and until now that was just fine with her.

She doesn’t know what changed. She doesn’t know why. But here she is just the same, sitting in some beat-up old diner in Nowheresville, Macedonia, letting some spoiled brat take pot-shots between mouthfuls of something called ‘preserve’. She can say _‘get lost’_ as many times as she wants, but neither one of them are doing it, are they? Here’s Mel, talking to her like she has any right to, like she has the first idea of what and who she’s dealing with, and here’s Janice, drinking coffee and letting this dame walk all over her, mad as hell and not doing a damn thing about it. It’s—

“Bullshit.” She spits the word out like a curse.

Mel chuckles, and reaches for another pot of ‘preserve’. “You’ll get no argument from me,” she says.

Somehow, Janice finds that hard to believe.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

Mel insists that they go back to the motel.

That hellhole is about the last place in the world Janice wants to go, and the last place in the universe she can afford, but apparently she’s reached the point now where she doesn’t even bother pretending she can argue with Mel. Once that woman gets her mind fixed on something, Janice is all but screwed. The sooner she sucks it up and accepts that, the less frustrating life will be for everyone.

Besides, if there’s one thing she’s learned in the last day or so, it’s that it’s easier to just nod and roll her eyes and say _‘okay’_ than it is to sit there for four hours while Mel reels off a ten-mile list of reasons why her way is ‘practical’ and ‘sensible’.

In this case, admittedly, it’s both of those things. Well, probably, anyway. Janice definitely can’t afford to keep paying for this cramped little box of a room in some half-assed roach motel, but there’s only so much work two people can do from the back of a truck before they start knocking elbows and bashing their heads together. And, well, far be it from her to inflict any more needless damage on Mel’s goddamned complexion.

They work on the scrolls together, crowded around the little table. Mel sits, complaining because the chair’s wobbling a bit; Janice stands, hunched over her precious scrolls like a dragon guarding its gold.

It’s embarrassing, more so than she would ever admit that even standing over her like this there’s still scarcely a couple of inches between their heights. It’s obscene, frankly, how damn tall the woman is, and how little Janice can do about it. She’s long accustomed to being shorter than everyone else around her, but it feels different with Mel, like the difference between their heights is symptomatic of all the other differences between them, their upbringings and their places in society, their attitudes to life, their skillsets… hell, everything.

Janice isn’t used to being made to feel inferior just by standing next to someone, and all the more so when it’s someone who looks so damned inoffensive on the surface. There’s no question which one of the two of them is the real threat — hint: it’s the one with the gun and the whip — but when they’re leaning in close together like this, Janice all but forgets that she’s the one trained in two dozen different kinds of survival, and that Mel Pappas is a good few millennia away from Xena the warrior princess.

 _I’m in charge,_ she reminds herself as they pore over the scrolls. _I don’t care what she looks like, or who she was, or what her ancestor did. This is my damn work, these are my damn scrolls, and I’m the damn boss_.

She takes that thought to heart, and though she’s far from the most qualified one in the room she makes a point of reading through the scrolls herself. She takes it slow and carefully, enunciating every syllable, and is just about generous enough that she doesn’t kick Mel in the head when she tries to correct her syntax.

Mel really is her father’s daughter, and the ancient language comes as naturally to her as anything Janice has ever seen; when she steps in to corrects Janice on this or that, it’s as though she doesn’t even need to read the damn thing to understand every word, like she’s soaking up every drop of context through osmosis or something. It’s like these stories really are hers, like she’s still channelling Xena in some hidden place deep inside. While Janice finds herself tripping up over stupid, simple things like prepositions and adjectives and pronouns, Mel tears through the scrolls like they’re nothing more than trashy romance novels, smiling and saying _‘oh my goodness’_ every five seconds or so.

After a while, annoyed by the strain on her brain and the fact that she’s struggling and Mel isn’t, Janice gives up the feint at being in command. She shoves the scroll at Mel, crosses over to the bed, and grabs a notepad.

“ _You_ do the reading,” she snaps, bitter and irritable. “I’ll make notes.”

Mel frowns. “Well, now, isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along?”

Janice throws the notepad at her.

*

It’s well into the afternoon when Mel starts complaining about food again.

Honestly, Janice has to admit she’s impressed; she’s been glancing at the clock every five minutes for at least a couple of hours, just waiting for the moment when Mel sits up and wails _‘I can’t go another minute’_ , but she hasn’t. Granted, her expectations were rock-bottom to begin with, but even so Mel has proved herself a diligent hard worker. She’s studious and attentive, focused in a way that Janice could never have anticipated; the way she works is a million miles away from the way she jumps around basically every other conversation they’ve had, and it’s only when her stomach starts to grumble that she comes back to herself and realises just how hungry she is. For all her impatience, even Janice can’t begrudge her a quick lunch break after all that.

They head back out into town for lunch, find another diner and another fancy-looking meal that they really can’t afford. Mel tucks in with her usual gusto, while Janice stares at the price list and imagines her wallet weeping.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she says, in a voice that leaves no room for discussion. “Fancy food, fancy motel rooms, all that other fancy crap you keeping yammering on about. Jesus Christ, Mel, you think money grows on trees?”

Stupid question, really. She is from the South, after all.

Mel doesn’t even look up from her plate, but Janice can tell that she’s paying attention just the same. “Why, I don’t rightly know,” she says. “Seems like you were doing all right for yourself before I showed up.”

“I had a dig site before you showed up,” Janice points out. “And I was skating on thin ice even back then.” Being so much like her father is hard enough; being _not_ like him is even harder. “Now I have a truck, a hole in the ground, and _you_ , and that damned ice is getting thinner by the second.”

She sighs, and fumbles for a smoke. Mel knits her brows together, visibly perplexed. “Goodness,” she says, as though she really never even thought about it until now. How lovely for her. “I had no idea.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Janice mutters, clenching her jaw. She takes a long, heavy drag from her cigar, and shuts her eyes. “I don’t exactly advertise this stuff, you know? Too many assholes like Smythe waiting to take advantage. They think I’m just like…”

She trails off, shaking her head.

Mel reaches across the table, catches her by the wrist. The contact is unexpected, and Janice tells herself it’s the surprise that stops her before she can pull away. She’s frozen, and Mel’s delicate fingers are as effective as a damn bear trap at holding her in place.

“Well, look at you, all opening up,” Mel says. Janice knows that she’s trying to make this easier, turning her weakness into a strength or something similarly idealistic, but it has the opposite effect. “We’ll figure something out, don’t you worry.”

Janice looks down at her wrist, counts the ridges of Mel’s knuckles. She has good hands, elegant and graceful and entirely too beautiful. They look like a secretary’s hands, or maybe a schoolteacher’s, like they were made to write long letters or handle fragile things. Janice wonders if her wrist counts as something fragile, and shakes off the thought before it can make her shiver.

Despite herself, she finds herself thinking that Mel’s hands would be good at transcribing the scrolls too. They’re delicate but strong, fluttery but pinpoint-precise; her penmanship would be phenomenal. Of course, chides herself for even thinking such a thing, and shakes off the thought completely before she can take it any further. Bad enough that she needs Mel to help translate the damn things in in the first place; there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that she’ll hand over the transcription as well. She might as well take her own name clean off the table if she does that.

“I wasn’t worried,” she says out loud, dragging the conversation back to simpler matters. “I’m just trying to get it through your head why living it up your way ain’t gonna cut it. I’m tapped out, sweetheart, so unless you plan on singing for your supper, you’d better make this one last.”

Saying it makes her feel strangely vulnerable, like she’s skirting a little too close to depending on someone else to pay her bills. She pulls her arm out of Mel’s grip and looks away. It’s not even that she’s embarrassed, at least not exactly; God knows, she’s not the first archaeologist to find herself in a bind like this. It’s just that admitting it out loud, _opening up_ like Mel said, leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

It doesn’t help either that it’s _Mel_. Mel, who is the most infuriating spoiled brat Janice has ever met. Mel, who less than a day ago was swinging a sword around in a centuries-buried tomb, standing toe-to-toe with the god of war and saving her worthless ass. Mel, who is both a delicate little flower and a goddamned warrior princess, and for the life of her Janice can’t figure out which of the two of them makes this hurt more.

Fortunately — or, well, _un_ fortunately — neither one of them gets a chance to say anything else about it. Mel gets as far as opening her mouth, but whatever she was going to say is cut off by a shriek as the door to the diner slams open and a spray of bullets lines the wall.

Janice hits the dirt.

Mel doesn’t. She sits there, frozen in place with her fork halfway up to her mouth, a stream of incoherent _“oh Lord”_ and _“my goodness”_ spilling unchecked from her throat.

Janice already has a hand on her gun. “Get down!”

Mel still doesn’t move. Janice thinks about yanking her down, but she doesn’t want to risk exposing either one of them any more than she has to. Besides, there are more pressing issues at hand, namely the idiot waving his gun around like they’re not in a goddamned public building.

The gunfire is over as quickly as it started; the silence is all but deafening, but a quick glance around makes it obvious that no-one was hurt; that says he’s probably more interested in scaring her than doing any real damage, though the fact is not much comfort right now.

Looking at his face, Janice finds it a tickling kind of familiar; she vaguely recognises him as an old acquaintance of Smythe’s, a self-involved moron with a quick tongue, an improbably large moustache, and a name that sounds like a soup.

Janice leaps to her feet, gun in hand, and breathes a sigh of relief when he rounds on her without even casting a glance at Mel or anyone else. That suits her just fine; she stumbles into stand-offs like this at least twice a week, and it’s more catharsis than anything else at this point. She knows how to deal with assholes and their threats, and she knows how to keep her cool when the bullets start flying at her head. So long as Mel is safe and out of the firing line, Janice doesn’t give a rat’s ass what else happens.

“Covington!” he says, and there’s deliberate inflection on the name, like she’s not the one he’s really talking to.

She’s used to that, too, though she wishes she wasn’t, and for a second or two she thinks about just shooting him through the hand and being done with it. It’d be quick and clean, if not entirely painless, but hell, he’s the jackass shooting up diners just to make some overblown action-hero point. She ignores the temptation, though, because she can feel Mel staring at her, gawking even, like she hangs the damn moon or something. For her sake, Janice tries to do things the nice way.

“People are trying to eat in here,” she says, aiming at his head. It’s a warning, nothing more, but he takes a step backwards just the same. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he shoots back, and the sneer in his voice makes her see red. “But then, we both know the answer already, don’t we?”

“Shut up.” Her finger twitches over the trigger, though, a flinch that he can’t possibly have missed. The jibe hurt like hell, and he knows it. “What the hell is this?”

He shrugs. “Well, I did try you at your last known address, but it seems you weren’t home.” He says it so matter-of-fact, like that’s enough of a reason to start shooting up local businesses. “A shame, frankly. Would’ve saved me the trouble of tracking you down if you’d had the decency to blow yourself up as well.”

He’s talking about the dig site, she realises, and the anger starts to rise up from her stomach into her chest. “You looking for Smythe?” she asks, though she knows better than to expect it really is so simple. “’Cause if so, I hate to break it to you…”

“Please. Smythe is… _was_ an amateur.” The correction is deliberate, pointed, and it makes her uneasy. Soupsworth, or whatever he calls himself, knows a hell of a lot more than he should. “You know why I’m here.”

Janice does know, of course. It’s the same reason Smythe came after her, the same reason anyone ever does: the goddamned scrolls. Funny, how many low-life bastards want to buy her out or shoot her down for something most of them don’t even believe in. Funny, yeah, in a way that makes her want to kill ’em all.

She opens her mouth to tell him he can take a long walk off a short pier, but she doesn’t get the chance. Startled out of her stupor, Mel beats her to the punch.

“Janice?” Her voice is a squeak, panicky like it was yesterday in the tent, but strong like it was when Xena was inside of her. It makes Janice angry and anxious at the same time. “Is this another one of your gentleman friends?”

Soupsworth-Whatever barks a wry laugh, eyes narrowing as they lock on Mel. Janice feels her blood start to boil. “Don’t you know, darling?” he asks. “Covington doesn’t have _gentleman_ friends.”

Mel’s mouth twists a little, like she can tell he’s making a dig at something but doesn’t quite know what it is. If they weren’t in the middle of a stand-off right now, with actual guns and actual bullets involved, it might actually be cute. As it is, Janice doesn’t give Mel the chance to start making small-talk.

“Leave her out of this, Soupsworth,” she barks. “It’s me you’re after, isn’t it?”

“Not _you_.” That hurts too, maybe more than the bullets would have, but she doesn’t let it show. “No-one’s ever been after _you_ , now, have they? It’s that delicious discovery of yours we’re after. You and your new lady friend are just… collateral.”

“New lady friend?” Mel echoes, clearly not comprehending the fact that her life is in danger here, that she’ll find herself plugged full of holes if she doesn’t keep her damn mouth shut. “Well, now, excuse me, Mister… Soupsworth, is it?”

He rolls his eyes. “ _Campbell_. Your friend Covington has a child’s sense of humour.”

“Well, I know that,” Mel quips, and Janice can’t help wondering how the hell it came to be that they’re both knocking her around now. “Now, how many… ah, ‘lady friends’… would you say Doctor Covington has?”

“Mel!” At this point, getting shot is almost a preferable option. “This ain’t the time!”

“On the contrary.” She recognises the gleam in Campbell’s eye — Smythe had it too, all the damn time — and she knows what’s coming even before he turns his attention away from her. “I’d say this is _precisely_ the time.” He’s locked tight on Mel now, recognising that she’s worth something even if he doesn’t quite understand what or why, and of course he’s just smart enough to capitalise on it. “ _Enchanté_ , Miss…?”

“Don’t answer him!” Janice shouts, cutting Mel off before she can give her name. “I’m warning you…”

But that’s as far as she gets. This idiot isn’t like Smythe; that much she definitely remembers. He doesn’t dance around a situation, doesn’t try to find a painless, profitable way out. He doesn’t hire goons to do his dirty work for him, and when he sees an opening he doesn’t waste time trying to stuff money into it. He takes what he wants, and Janice feels the world grinding to a stop all around her as he thumbs the hammer of his gun, finger twitching on the trigger. She’s not the target this time, she realises, and knows, _knows_ , from a lifetime of dodging bullets just like this, that he’s going for the kill.

She hears the _click_ and the _crack_ as though from a distance, but by the time it reaches her she’s already on the move. She throws herself at Mel, shoves her off the chair and onto the ground, and covers her body with her own. She’ll be damned if she lets this bastard hurt someone who’s just trying to help. That’s her job, apparently.

The explosion comes a split-second later, the _crack_ turning to a deafening _boom_ as the pistol fires, and Janice hears the shattering of glass from somewhere just above and behind them. There’s a tear in her sleeve when she raises her gun again, but she doesn’t see any blood, and that’s about all the time she has to waste thinking about it. Her hand doesn’t shake at all when she thumbs the hammer and when she fires — twice, just to be sure — she proves beyond all doubt that she’s a better shot than the likes of him will ever be.

Maybe her father did teach her something worth learning after all.

He screams like a schoolgirl when her shots catch their target, dropping his weapon and reeling back, and Janice watches through the smoke and haze as the blood starts seeping through the fabric of his shirt, holes torn through the shoulder.

She hauls herself up onto her knees, finds Mel wriggling and squirming under her. “You all right?”

“I…” Mel looks down at herself, blinking rapidly. “My goodness…”

“Uh huh.” Janice’s eye is keener, or maybe just more experienced, and she doesn’t need more than a second to assess the damage and realise there’s none. “Good enough.”

Mel frowns, visibly dazed. “Your sleeve…”

“Ah, it’s fine.” It is. If it wasn’t, the pain would’ve hit by now, and that old jacket has survived far worse than this. “Better than your skirt after Xena got done with it, anyways.”

Mel’s face falls. “Do you have to remind me?”

“Sorry.” She’s not, and she makes that real clear, swinging back to her feet with a shrug and a forced grin. “Stay down. Don’t talk. Don’t move.”

She forces Mel out of her mind then, because she has to, because there are more important things to worry about. She’s across the room in about three steps, grabbing Campbell by his bloodied collar and shoving him out onto the street. It’s safe out there, she knows, away from his gun and breakable glass and at least most civilians, and she doesn’t give a rat’s ass that she’s hurting him in the process. Damned fool brought it all on himself, just like Smythe did yesterday back in the tomb, just like all those bastards always do when they start coming at her thinking she’s an easy target. She won’t mourn Smythe, buried alone down in that tomb, and she sure as hell won’t lose any sleep about hurting some other sucker who took a shot at her.

His limbs are shaking where she holds him, but he still tries to act tough. “Why, you—”

“Shut up.” She nudges his shoulder, the one she just put a bullet in, and the bravado falls off him in a rush as he wails. “I’m not in the habit of letting bastards like you ride off into the sunset, but my friend is a real soft touch and I want to do right by her.” It’s sickening, how true that is, though she doesn’t let him see that. “So for her sake, I’m gonna play nice and not stick you right here.”

He sucks in a breath through his teeth, and musters a glare. She has to admire his guts; she’s taken a bullet or two through the shoulder herself, and she knows that it hurts like hell. It’s impressive enough that he’s not curled up crying on the floor, even more so that he’s still got the strength to try and act like he’s holding all the cards. Impressive, yeah, but no less stupid for it.

“The scrolls…” he manages, voice tight.

“Dead and buried,” she lies. She’s always been good at that, thinking up bullshit on the spot. “You saw the dig site. You think anything could’ve survived that?”

He blinks, almost comedic in his idiocy. She supposes she can’t blame him for being a little slow on the uptake; she wouldn’t be particularly quick-witted either if she was bleeding out.

“You’re bluffing,” he says after a moment. “You’d never destroy the scrolls. You’d end yourself first.” He forces a smile, but it’s about as intimidating as… well, Mel. “Oh, I can just see it now. You standing on the precipice, throwing yourself over the edge, so convinced that you’ll be going out in a blaze of glory…”

It’s a nice image, and she smiles. “Worked for Smythe.”

“Ah, but you’re not Smythe, are you?” That’s a blow, not that she’d ever admit it. “Hell, you’re not even _me_. Your death wouldn’t even take up a line in the local papers, much less an obituary.” The smile comes a little easier now, and Janice doesn’t appreciate the way he can still make her feel like hell when he’s the one bleeding all over the floor. “Guess it runs in the family, hm?”

She punches him, as hard as she can, right in his wounded shoulder. He hits the ground screaming, and she pulls her gun on him again, thumb shaking on the hammer but finger real steady on the trigger.

“I’ll write _your_ obituary, you worthless son of a—”

“Janice!”

She doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t need to. “Get back inside, Mel.”

“Not on your life.”

It’s maddening, how strong she sounds all of a sudden, how completely that clashes with everything Janice is feeling right now. She’s the one standing there over the big-mouthed bastard, watching him bleed out onto the floor and just itching for a chance to put another bullet in him and finish the job; she’s the one with all the aces, and Mel is the sweet little Southern flower who’s so far out of her depth she can’t even see the damn shore. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, anyway, but who’s the one who’s shaking and who’s the one who’s not?

It’s impressive and infuriating at the same time. Mel doesn’t flinch, doesn’t hesitate or falter even a little, and when she grabs Janice by the collar there’s a power in her that makes Janice think of Xena all over again. She’s unwavering, unhesitating, and completely in control, not just of herself but of the whole damn situation. It makes the anger flare even higher, makes the blood boil in Janice’s veins; it makes her want to scream and pull the trigger, but all the strength bleeds right out of her when she glances down and catches the strength in Mel’s elegant fingers.

“Dammit, Mel!” Her voice is shaking too. “I said ‘get back inside’!”

“And I said ‘not on your life’.” She tightens her grip just a little, hauling Janice away from the cringing coward at her feet; Janice hates that she yields almost automatically, that her body is so busy bowing and bending to Mel’s will that it completely ignores its own. “Come along, now. You made your point, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not even close.” She spins in Mel’s grip, just enough to lash out with a heavy boot, catching Campbell in the ribs in a final flurry of fury. “Son of a goddamned _bitch_.”

He grunts, the impact leaving him winded but not breathless enough. “Always the… charmer… Covington.”

“Now, you quiet down,” Mel snaps. Janice can’t believe the courage in her, the way that she, armed with nothing but her smile and her sense of style, can talk to two hard-headed gunslingers and somehow leave them both thinking that she’s the one who’s dangerous. “Now, you’re both gonna stop right there. Janice, you made your gosh-darn point. Putting that little man in the ground won’t bring your daddy back, and you know it.”

“More’s the pity,” Campbell chimes in, sounding anything but regretful.

Mel rounds on him in a flash, and the thundercloud look on her face silences him more effectively than any number of Janice’s bullets. “And _you_! Shootin’ up reputable places of business! Putting holes in decent folk’s jackets! Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Mel.” Janice massages her temples; how the hell did this situation get so far out of her hands? “People like him aren’t exactly the kind to—”

“I believe I said ‘quiet down’.”

Janice sighs, but does as she’s told. “Hell, it’s your funeral.”

Mel shrugs, head cocked to the side as if to say _‘I don’t think so’_. Her confidence is unexpected after all that fumbling and mumbling, and maybe a little awe-inspiring in a weird sort of way. Xena’s not inside of her now, Janice knows, but that doesn’t seem to matter at all; Mel doesn’t need to channel a warrior princess to be unstoppable, it seems. She’s nothing now, only herself, but she’s standing strong and tall like this is her true self, like she never needed Xena at all.

Until now, Janice has naturally just assumed that Xena woke in Mel because of where she came from, not who she was, some crap about bloodlines and descendants and souls and all the rest of it; Xena’s soul was tied to Mel’s body not by any strength of its own but because they both spawned from the same place. Some crap like that, anyhow. It helped to soothe Janice’s bruised ego a little, to think that it really was just that simple. Mel wasn’t _powerful_ , not by herself; she just had the right set of genes.

It doesn’t feel like that now, though. Looking at Mel now, all strong and straight-shouldered, lips thinned and eyes flashing, she finds herself wondering if maybe it was the other way around all along, if maybe it was Xena who awakened something in _Mel_. It sure as hell doesn’t look like a bloodline thing now. Mel is nothing like Xena, but good grief, does she ever look like a warrior.

She’s in complete control now. There’s two of them, idiots with guns and egos and enough bravado to win a war, two of them with their hot tempers and their violence and their heat, but it’s Mel and her sweet smile that has them both helpless and weak. It might be understandable in someone like Campbell, or even Smythe if he was here, but Janice is a pro and she’s never been the kind to get all weak-kneed and whimpering. Hard to believe, harder to understand, but here she is all over again, as helpless as the idiot with a bullet in his shoulder.

Mel hauls him to his feet, and Janice is stunned by the way she moves, quick and shockingly strong; that tailored suit hides a whole lot more than a warrior princess’s bloodline.

“Now, then,” she says, addressing him and ignoring Janice. “Mr Soupsworth or Campbell or whatever you fancy your name is… you run along now. That there bullet-hole isn’t gonna close itself any time soon.”

“More’s the goddamned pity,” Janice spits, throwing Campbell’s own words back at him.

“Hush, Janice.” Mel doesn’t look at her, of course; she’s still locked on Campbell. “Now, I don’t wanna see your face round here again, you hear? Them scrolls weren’t yours to begin with, and they’re not yours now neither.” He opens his mouth to argue or whine or something, but Mel clamps down on his arm like she’s been doing this all her life, cutting him off before he can get a word out. “There’s a good fella.”

She holds him for another moment or two, tight enough that Janice knows it has to hurt, then gives him a gentle, if pointed, shove. He topples backwards, floundering for a second or two, like even now he still wants to put up a fight. Janice drives Mel’s point home in her own style, pointing her gun at his head again, and pulling back the hammer with just a fraction too much relish.

Mel ‘tsk’s, but doesn’t chide her; apparently even she has to admit that Janice’s method is effective, even if she clearly disapproves of it. Either way, the two of them combined have the desired effect, and Campbell’s futile feint at bravado goes up in smoke at the sight of the barrel trained on his head. He stumbles backwards, inching his way down the street like a damn drunk, and doesn’t even bother with a parting shot. Pathetic, really.

For her part, Janice is kind of annoyed by how anticlimactic the whole thing was. Mel might be the type to figure out a peaceable way through a situation like this, but Janice doesn’t play that way; she has two fists’ worth of itchy knuckles and a gun full of bullets and she’s full to bursting with the second-worst kind of frustration. Mel’s sweet Southern diplomacy might get the job done well enough, but it’s hell on Janice’s temper. She’s climbing the walls now, desperate to hurt someone and real close to flat-out hating Mel for denying her the chance.

Mel doesn’t cave to her, though, any more than she did to Campbell. The cowardly bastard is stalking away now, holding his spine as straight as his injuries allow, but Mel doesn’t say anything; she just holds Janice real tight, keeping her in check without so much as a word. She’s close by her side now, one hand on her hip and the other vice-tight around Janice’s arm; her fingers are sure and very strong, and the contact is a warning far more than a comfort.

 _’Don’t do nothin’ silly, now,’_ she’s saying, squeezing her arm until it hurts, and Janice hates herself for the way she doesn’t even try to resist. What the hell is wrong with her, that this harmless-looking dame has her quaking in her boots?

Feeling impotent and desperately angry, she spits on the floor, glaring bloody murder at Campbell’s retreating back. “Get outta here, you two-bit son of a bastard!”

Mel gives her shoulder a condescending little pat. “You tell ’im, Janice.”

*

Back inside, the diner is all but deserted.

What few other customers there were have long since disappeared, running for the hills as soon as the first shot rang out, and even the owners are nowhere to be found now; no doubt they value their survival instincts a little more highly than their business, and who can blame them? It’s not really something Janice can imagine doing for herself — come hell or high water, her livelihood’s always going to come before her life — but she’d never judge someone else for choosing to save their own skin.

Alone as they are, then, she doesn’t hold back. “You should’ve let me kill him.”

Mel smiles. It’s a soft sort of smile, sad and unbearably patient, and the sight of it makes Janice’s stomach clench. “Now, now,” she chides, as soft as she can. “You wouldn’t’ve thanked me for it.”

“I’d’ve thanked you for keeping your goddamn nose out of my goddamn business.”

She’s seething, but the rage seems to bounce right off Mel, like she’s completely immune to it. She shakes her head, leaning back against the counter; it’s about the only piece of furniture in this stupid place that hasn’t been shot up or turned upside-down, and Mel makes good use of it. Still, the look on her face makes it real clear that she’d sooner be by Janice’s side, that she’s just itching to close the space between them and try and offer some shred of comfort. She knows better than to try it, of course, and Janice doesn’t even need to shoot her the _‘touch me and you’ll have one less hand’_ look; Mel keeps the distance as wide as the space allows, and keeps her smile soft.

“Lord knows, I understand how you’re feelin’,” she says. “Heck, I’d even say he’d deserve it. But you know as well as I do that shooting someone dead is no good answer to any kind of problem.”

“He seemed to think it was,” Janice points out bitterly. “So did Smythe.”

She doesn’t say _‘and so do I’_ , but of course she doesn’t have to; Mel surely knows that well enough already. There are few people in this godforsaken world that Janice wouldn’t plug full of bullets given half a chance and a vaguely cohesive reason. She’s always angry, often violent, and Mel was right when she accused her of carrying a chip on her shoulder. It doesn’t take much to set her nerves on fire, get her temper burning and her blood hot, and she’s done a whole lot worse to bastards like Smythe and Campbell for saying a whole lot less than what they did. She didn’t regret it then, and she wouldn’t regret it now either. Mel must know that, but still she carries that blithe optimism of hers like a badge, smiling wide and believing that there’s more to Janice Covington than what she is.

“Well, now,” she says, “don’t you think we ought to try and be a little better than fellas like that?”

Janice rolls her eyes. “Ain’t so easy in a world like this one, sweetheart.” It’s true. Even if she was inclined to be a peacemaker, which she’s not, the life she’s lived would make it real hard to stick to it. “Anyway, they started it.”

“I’m sure they did,” Mel says, as patronising as anything. “Don’t mean you always gotta be the one to finish it, though.”

“Yeah, it does.” She closes her eyes for a moment, tries to hold herself steady. There’s a twisting in her belly, in her chest, and a sting behind her eyes that is entirely too familiar; she has to drive it back before she trusts herself to start speaking again. She has never cried in front of a living soul, and she’s not about to start now. “You’re out of your depth here, Mel.”

“Now, don’t you think I should be the judge of that?” She’s smiling again when Janice opens her eyes, bright and utterly unguarded. The openness is devastating; Janice doesn’t know whether to admire or resent her for it. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened just now if I hadn’t been there to stop you making a fool of yourself.” She casts an eye over Janice’s torn jacket sleeve, and ‘tsk’s. “Be a darn sight worse than a new wardrobe, I’d wager.”

“Maybe. But at least I’d feel better.”

Mel sighs a little at that. The smile falls off her face, and the look that’s left behind is very, very sad. “You sure about that?”

No, she’s not sure. In fact, she’s fairly sure that she wouldn’t feel any better at all. But hell, at least she’d have some outlet for what she _is_ feeling. She might have a dead jackass on her hands and her conscious if Mel wasn’t around to rein her in, but at least she wouldn’t be standing here shaking from head to toe with the urge to punch or shoot or thrash someone. At least she’d be able to go home, smoke a few and drink a few more, wash away the day with bad habits and worse vices, and put it all behind her when she was done. At least she’d be _alone_ , for crying out loud. And, yeah, maybe that means she’d be lonely too but right now lonely feels like a better option than holding herself down.

“Yeah,” she says out loud. “Yeah, I’m sure. Jesus, Mel, I’m nothing but trouble. Ain’t you figured that out by now?”

“Oh, I reckon I’ve got you figured out mighty good.” She shakes her head, and in a flash the smile is back, a little sharper but still so incredibly sweet. “You like to think those things about yourself, don’t you? Strutting around, carrying that big ol’ chip on your shoulder, acting like you’re so darn tough. You like to believe you got some kind of monopoly on trouble, don’tcha? Well, now, let me tell you right now, Janice Covington: you _don’t_.”

Janice rolls her eyes at the posturing, and she definitely doesn’t let Mel see she’s struck home. “You were almost killed,” she says instead, sullen as a teenager. “You haven’t even known me for two full days, for crying out loud, and I’ve already lost count of how many times you’ve almost been killed.”

“Well, then,” Mel says with a wry chuckle, “what’s one more between friends?”

Janice throws up her hands. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“No, I dare say I’m not.” She sobers ever so slightly, and there’s a fire behind her eyes that Janice has never seen before, not even back when she was Xena. “You’re a darn fool if you think for one second I’m gonna turn around and walk away just as things are startin’ to get interesting.”

“You call this ‘interesting’?”

“I surely do.”

“Most people call it something a whole lot less polite.” Janice shakes her head, sighing heavily. Is there even a point in trying to make this dame see sense? “You’re setting yourself up for a world of pain.”

“Now, don’t you think I know that already?”

That catches her off-guard, and for once she’s not ashamed to show it. Mel comes off in some many different ways, fierce and hungry when she thinks she’s owed something and utterly content in her naïveté the rest of the time. She doesn’t know the first thing about money troubles or scrounging for meals and motel rooms and all the rest of it; she doesn’t know the first thing about scrabbling in the dirt for an archaeological find that may not even exist, and she doesn’t know the first thing about living hand to mouth. At a glance, she doesn’t have a damn clue what living really is; it’s not so much of a stretch to look at her and just assume that she’s stupid about this as well, blithe and young and ignorant, her ferocity borne more from her spoiled upbringing than any inner fire.

It’s easy to forget that underneath all of that Mel is the most perceptive, unimaginably brilliant woman Janice has ever seen.

“You do?” she hears herself ask.

“Well, of course I do. Lord knows, you only need to spend two minutes in your company to know exactly what kind of ‘trouble’ you are.” Her lips twitch up, smug and just a little bit self-congratulatory, like she’s already won whatever argument she thinks they’re having. “Pardon my language, Doctor Covington, but you can be a bit of a _bitch_.”

Janice chokes. She’s not sure what floors her more: the accusation itself, or hearing _that word_ spilling off Mel’s perfect, ladylike tongue.

“The hell did you just call me?” she blurts out, jaw on the floor.

Mel snorts, then shakes her head. “Oh, don’t act all high-and-mighty, pretendin’ like that ain’t exactly how you want it.” She actually has the gall to laugh, like this is some kind of a joke. “I got you pegged, all right. And if that attitude of yours ain’t enough to scare me off, what in the world makes you think some fool with a gun will be?”

“You don’t get it,” Janice says. “He won’t be the only one.”

“I don’t doubt that. If the scrolls weren’t reason enough, that attitude of yours surely is.”

Naturally, Janice doesn’t dignify that with a response. “Would you knock it off with the bravado for just one goddamn second?” She squeezes her eyes shut, counts to ten, then tries one final time. “Look. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with bastards like Smythe and Campbell and whoever else. My whole damn life, I’ve been ducking bullets and dodging punches and God only knows what else, and that’s only gonna get worse now that I’ve finally got the scrolls in my hands. When I say you’re in for a world of hurt, I don’t think you understand what I’m talking about.”

“And I don’t think _you_ understand,” Mel says softly. “I know you like to think I’m this spoiled, silly thing, this placid little girl who don’t know her left hand from her right, but that’s not who I am. You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle, Janice Covington, and you sure as _heck_ don’t get to decide who I choose as my…” She cuts herself off really sharply, clears her throat like she’s embarrassed. “…friend.”

Janice quirks a brow. “‘Friend’?”

“You heard me.” She’s blushing like crazy, though, like Janice did back at the motel when Mel dropped her towel. “And I’ll thank you not to take that tone.”

Janice rolls her eyes.  It shouldn’t sound as compelling as it does, this bullshit argument. Mel really isn’t much to look at, and to hear her talk she’s even less, but it’s not so easy to remember all of that when she’s the one who just chased off a textbook moustache-twirling villain without spilling so much as a drop of blood. It’s hard enough, remembering that Mel is supposed to be the weak one when Janice is the one nursing a battered ego and bruised pride, and it’s even harder when she can still remember what that simpering Southern face looked like when it had Xena’s soul inside. As Xena and as herself, Mel has shunted Janice’s own efforts to the side again and again, and everything she does lands with with the kind of weight that two generations of Covingtons could never pull off.

Still, even with all of that in front of her, it’s real hard to swallow her pride. Janice is still her father’s daughter, for all that she might wish she could step beyond that, and it’s so hard to let show even a fraction of the humility that a dame like Mel really deserves. Janice isn’t the kind of person who works well with others even at the best of times, and she’s definitely not the kind to look at someone like Mel and say _‘thank you’_ or _‘good to have you on board’_. She’s exactly the kind of don’t-know-a-good-thing idiot who pushes people away before they can get too close, who locks out decent, well-meaning people before they can sneak in and wrap themselves around her, before she wakes up one morning and realises that she might actually like them after all. She’s the kind of person who is deliberately abrasive, who shoves and kicks and gnashes her teeth, and she is _definitely_ not the kind of person that a sweet firebrand like Mel should be sticking to.

“Look,” she says, speaking very slowly. “I already told you I’m not sharing credit. You want your name on something, you should just cut ties with me right now. You’d be better off hitching yourself to some dick like Campbell or Smythe.”

Mel studies her, eyes bright with a startling kind of clarity.

“I don’t doubt that,” she says. “But it wouldn’t be nearly so exciting, now, would it?”

*

So that’s that, then.

Mel insists that they pay for their lunch, even though there’s nothing left of it and the owners aren’t even there to collect anyway. Janice does what she’s told, pissing away the last of her loose change just to keep the silly girl happy. She’d never admit to going soft, not for a goddamned second, but there’s something undeniably stupid in the way it makes her go all warm and fuzzy inside to watch as Mel’s face breaks into a beaming kid-at-Christmas smile.

“Well, now, you see?” Mel chirps, as cheery as you please, as they head back outside. “I reckon you are a proper gentleman, after all.”

Janice closes her eyes, braces her arms on the hood of the truck and presses her forehead against the surface. She has the kind of headache that only a few shots and a few dozen smokes can cure. “Yeah?” she grunts. “Well, this ‘gentleman’ really wants to punch something right about now.”

Mel touches her shoulder, unbearably gentle. “Janice…”

“Forget it.” She pulls away, from the hood and from Mel, then yanks the driver’s side door open and throws herself down onto the seat. If there’s a little rasp to her throat, a little sting behind her eyes, she takes great care to keep it hidden; she knows what Mel would do, given half a chance. “Look, would you just knock it off? All this ‘holier than thou’ preacher stuff. Makes me wanna sock you.”

“Now, I’m sorry you feel that way—”

“Great. So stop it already. I’m not some goddamned charity case, Mel, and I don’t need you waving your fingers trying to fix me or whatever the hell you think you’re doing. I’m not broken or damaged or or whatever crap you’ve got in your head, and I sure as hell don’t need a hug. I’m just _pissed_ , and you ain’t gonna fix it.”

Mel doesn’t move. “I reckon I know that.”

“Then _stop_. Unless you feel like offering your face for target practice.” She keys the ignition, revving the engine, and doesn’t admit that it’s less for show and more because she’s afraid of what Mel will say to her given half a chance. “You coming or not?”

Quick as a whip, Mel hops into the passenger seat. “Now, just hold up a gosh-darn second, will you?”

Janice revs the truck again, a warning this time. “No.”

“ _Janice_.”

Her hand is on Janice’s arm again now, long fingers prodding at the tear in her jacket where the bullet skimmed past. Janice doesn’t need to look at her to know what kind of expression she’ll find on her face, that sad distant look that she wears sometimes when Janice gets mean for no apparent reason. She’s not exactly treated her well over the last day or so, and it’s understandable that it would leave a mark. Maybe if she was a better person, Janice might feel bad about that, showing such cruelty to someone trying to be so kind, but all she can think of right now, swept up in anger and bitterness, is how it’s Mel’s own damn fault for sticking around as long as she has. She warned her, didn’t she? Over and over, didn’t she warn her?

All the warnings in the world haven’t had any impact, though. Again and again, Mel sticks around. Again and again, she tries to push past whatever Janice is working through — or, hell, failing to work through — and talk to her like she’s one of her happy little friends, all well-adjusted and living it up in the Southern sun. If she was anyone else, Janice might almost find that kind of thing touching, but she’s not; she can only be who she is, and that’s too angry and too violent to care. No-one has ever shown her this kind of patience, this kind of _compassion_ , and that’s always been the way she likes it. She hates compassion, hates patience, and more than anything else in the whole damn world she hates _pity_.

Mel doesn’t give a rat’s ass what Janice likes and hates, though. She might not be the brightest pencil in the box, but she has to realise by now that Janice is two breaths away from ripping her throat out just to shut her up. She’s still here, though, still leaning in and touching her, still talking to her like she deserves all that crap, acting like they’re friends or more than friends, like they’ve been together like this for _years_ , not just a day.

Janice remembers the way Xena looked at her from behind Mel’s eyes. She remembers the way Mel’s lips lifted, the way Xena smiled to think of Gabrielle, the way they both lit right up when she whispered that her useless tag-along sidekick was so damn important. It’s hard to forget that, the first time in her life someone looked at her like _she_ was important too, and it breaks her now just as completely as it did back then.

Xena is long gone now. Since they left the tomb, there’s been no trace of her in Mel at all, but maybe some part of the feeling stuck around, because there’s no other way to explain the way Mel looks at her, the way she touches her, the way she’s so goddamned patient when Janice just wants to kick her out of this truck and send her scurrying off back home.

She closes her eyes, swallows back as much of the bitterness as she can stomach. “Still don’t know what’s good for you, huh?”

Mel’s fingers work their way down under the tear in her jacket, and find the edge of the shirt beneath. Her nails are long, scoring lines against the skin, but it’s not unpleasant. “Why, I could very well say the same about you, don’t you think?”

“You could.” There’s no sense in denying it, after all; Mel might be naïve, but she’s not stupid. “But you won’t. Not unless you want to walk back to that motel room all on your own.”

Mel sighs. Her nails dig in a little deeper. “You’re as stubborn as a mule, Janice Covington.”

“Yeah.” She sighs too, but it’s heavier than Mel’s, a lifetime of scowls and clenched jaws turning the sound rough in her chest. “You’re wasting your breath. This whole give-and-take shtick ain’t for me. You gotta see that by now.”

“Well, now, of course I do. But maybe I’m a little stubborn too, ’cause I don’t feel like quittin’ on you just yet.”

“Your call.” Janice shrugs, but doesn’t pull away from the contact. Mel can’t possibly understand how significant that is, but her eyes crinkle at the edges as though she does. “But don’t come crying to me when you get no return on your investment.”

Mel’s fingers tighten on her arm, clenching like a kind of flinch. It brings the nails sharper against the skin, stinging. “That all you ever talk about?” she asks, quiet and very intense. “All ‘investment’ this and ‘money’ that?”

“What of it?”

She knows, of course, and it cuts like a knife when Mel says it out loud. “Just that I thought that was your daddy’s thing, not yours.”

Janice yanks her arm free, violent enough that she feels Mel’s nails break the skin in the instant before they’re pulled back. “Shut up!”

She doesn’t even realise that she’s rearing back for a swing until she comes back to herself and feels her fist shaking. Mel’s just sitting there, not bracing or flinching or anything, just watching and waiting; it’s like there’s a part of her that knows Janice doesn’t have the balls to punch a lady, even in a fit of temper, or else maybe she just has a little too much faith in her ability to rein herself in. Either way, the lack of response makes Janice even angrier, and when she does lower her arm, impotent and worthless, it’s with a shout that shakes the truck.

Mel flinches a little, more at the sound than the violence, but the momentary shock doesn’t stop her reaching out again. “Janice…”

“Shut up.” It’s a whisper this time, nothing like the roar of before; all of a sudden she’s breathless, and dangerously close to tears. “For once in your life… just…”

“No.” She’s leaning right in now, achingly, desperately close. “Janice, you gotta know he’d be proud of you.”

Janice shakes her head, shakes all over. “I don’t care. I don’t _care_. I don’t…”

But she does. She cares so damn much, too damn much, and it would take a real idiot not to know that. Her father is in every part of her, the way she talks and dresses, the way her lips twist into an ugly smirk when she’s angry, the way she drinks and smokes and swears and spits, the way she’d sooner punch a man than talk to him. He’s in the work she does, the life she lives, the things she’s endured and the things she’s achieved. He’s in the pride that swells inside her when she says her own name, and the shame that washes it away when someone else does.

Harry Covington. The grave robber. The two-bit crook who’d sell his own mother if he thought she was worth anything. No-one ever thought to ask how much all that money cost him in the end.

Janice wishes that she didn’t care. She wishes that she could make this all about the scrolls, about history and Xena and all the rest of it, but it’s not. It never was. She knows that it makes her selfish, and all the more so next to someone like Mel, who _was_ Xena, but she can’t help herself. The scrolls should be Mel’s, not hers; Janice knows that, but she also knows that she’ll never be able to give them up. She knows that she’s locking Mel Pappas out of something that really is personal to her, her family’s history scrawled across that ancient parchment; she knows that Mel has more claim to Xena’s stories than she herself ever will, but still she can’t bring herself to hand them over. It was never her father’s story to discover, not truly, but she can’t let go of the one thing she has left of him.

 _I don’t care,_ she thinks again, but what she means is that she _can’t_ care. She can’t afford to care about Melinda Pappas; she can’t afford to worry about whether or not she hurts her feelings, can’t afford to look beyond her fluttering hands and her silly accent and her _‘my goodness’_ , can’t afford to see past all those things that make it so damn easy to underestimate her. She can’t look behind her eyes, can’t see Xena’s soul inside of her; if she did, she’d be lost. She’ll give up the only thing that ever mattered, her father’s livelihood and her own damn life. She cares so much, and so she can’t let herself care at all.

Mel, bless her soul, gets that. She’s still leaning in, her face a hair’s breadth away from Janice’s, and Janice can see all of that inside of her, the soft smile and the softer eyes.

“Stubborn mule,” she says again, so tender that it hurts.

Janice closes her eyes. She won’t ever cry in front of another living soul… but _oh_ , she wants to.

“I’m not sharing credit,” she forces out. Again and again, she says it, clings to it, drives it like a wedge between them. It’s so damn important. “You hear me, Mel Pappas? I’m not sharing.”

It’s not about that, of course. It’s not even a little bit about that, but what else is there? Her father’s name, Xena’s name… she knows they’re not hers, but they’re all she has to hold on to.

Mel pulls her in. It’s not exactly a hug, if only because Janice won’t let it be one, but it’s close enough to steal her breath, and Mel’s mouth is warm and impossibly sweet against her jaw.

“You don’t have to,” she whispers, and holds her close.

*

Hours later, back at the motel, Janice says “Christ, I miss him.”

She’s not sure where the confession comes from, what inspires her to say the words out loud for the first time in her life. It could be that she’s halfway down her fourth shot of whiskey and halfway to lighting up her third cigar in the last hour, or it could just be that she’s not used to not being alone. There was a tragic kind of irony in the way Mel said it earlier — _‘you’re not alone’_ , like solitude could ever a be a burden to someone like Janice — but it strikes her now, in a way she’s never really needed to think about before, that not being alone means having to watch her tongue when she’s had a few.

Mel pushes her chair back. She doesn’t stand, but she leans away from the little desk and the scrolls she’s been hunched over for the last couple of hours, and she uses the pretence of stretching out her limbs to turn and look Janice right in the eye.

“Me too,” she says. Her voice is very low, but it carries effortlessly in the tiny room. “My daddy, I mean. Not yours. I never rightly knew yours.”

The clarification is wholly unnecessary, of course, but it makes Janice bark a laugh just the same, and maybe that makes it worth something.

“You too?” It comes out so small, so hopeful; she hates herself for it. “I mean, uh…”

Mel doesn’t seem to notice the weakness in her, or else she’s real good at ignoring it. “Goodness, yes. Every day. Silly old fool taught me everything I know.”

It’s maddening, how easy the words come to her, how naturally she shapes what should be an insult into something sweet and fond and beautiful, something so full of love. Looking at her, it’d be easy to assume they were just talking about the damn scrolls, turning centuries-dead names into stories and myths and legends, nothing real, nothing that could ever really hurt. They’re not, though, and it shouldn’t come easily at all.

Then again, perhaps it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; if there’s one thing Janice has learned about Mel Pappas by now it’s that _everything_ comes easily to her. She takes it all in stride, everything from haunted tombs and immortal gods to being possessed by an ancient ancestor to being shot at and threatened to… to _this_ , talking about the people she loved and what they meant to her, spilling her heart to a near-perfect stranger, acting like they’ve been best friends their whole damn lives.

The supernatural archaeology crap, Janice understands well enough. That stuff actually _is_ easy. It’s the other stuff that baffles her, the feelings and family stuff, the part where Mel opens her heart and lets it bleed all over the floor like pain doesn’t hurt. That’s the rough stuff. That’s the stuff Janice will never, ever understand.

Mel lays herself open like the whole world is safe and sheltered and sympathetic. She talks about her dead father like his name isn’t a knife still lodged in her ribs, spreads wide her arms and her heart and all of herself like she really doesn’t see how stupid that is, how dangerous it is to expose herself in front of people who could use her words as weapons. Janice has dodged more bullets than she can count, had more near-misses than she wants to think about, all without breaking a sweat, but those three words — _‘I miss him’_ — swallowed up every ounce of courage she’s ever had.

And then there’s Mel, soft and sweet and saying _‘me too’_ like there’s nothing shameful in admitting it, like it doesn’t take any courage at all. It’s incredible and heartbreaking, and for just a second, even with no trace of Xena left in her, Mel Pappas looks like the bravest, most heroic person in the whole damn world.

“Christ,” Janice mutters again, and knocks back the rest of her drink. “How do you _do_ that?”

“Do what?” Mel asks, because she truly doesn’t seem to understand how remarkable it — _she_ — is.

“That,” Janice snaps. “All of it. Jesus.”

Mel knits her brows together for a moment or two, then shrugs. “Well, now, what’s the use in playing all coy? Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, least not that I can see.” She hums deep in her throat, like she’s thinking. “Heck, I could very well ask you the same question, don’tcha think? How is it that you _don’t_ do that?”

Janice doesn’t tell her that it scares the crap out of her, and she definitely doesn’t tell her that it hurts like hell. She just rolls her eyes and says, “I don’t want to give my enemies any more ammo to throw back in my face.”

Mel studies her for a very long time. When she finally speaks, it’s with devastating tenderness.

“You don’t got any enemies in here, Janice.”

Janice chokes. The weight of the words, the urgency, the raw emotion behind them, the heat in Mel’s eyes… it rends her heart from her chest, slams into her like a bullet or a boot; it guts her, and all of a sudden she finds that she can’t breathe.

She’s never heard those words before. Not even once, not even as a child. Her father was always telling her the exact opposite — _‘there’s enemies everywhere, Janey, don’t you ever drop your guard’_ — and after he was gone she was forced to deal with idiots like Smythe and Campbell and countless others, every one of them living proof that he was as right about that as he was about the goddamned scrolls. Her line of work isn’t safe — hell, her _life_ isn’t safe — and it sure as hell ain’t getting any safer now that she has the scrolls in her hands. She knows that all too well, but good grief, it’s hard not to believe Mel when she’s looking at her like that, like this roach-infested motel room is the safest place in the whole damn world.

“Dammit,” she whispers, and she’s not crying, she’s _not_ crying, she’s just blinking real hard. “ _Dammit_.”

Somewhere between the blinking that is definitely not crying, Mel’s clambered out of the chair and crossed over to her side. She doesn’t say anything for a while, but she sits down much closer than a respectable lady probably should, one arm slung over Janice’s shoulders and the other one cupping her face with unimaginably tenderness. She’s got a very strange look on her face now, like she _wants_ Janice to start crying, like she thinks she can will the tears to start falling if she stares hard enough at the tracks she wants them to paint. It won’t work, though; Janice has never cried in front of anyone, and she’s not about to start now. She blinks and blinks and blinks, but that’s all she’s got.

“Hey, now…” Mel murmurs, so quiet that even this close Janice almost misses it.

“Shut up,” she says, balling her fist in the sleeve of Mel’s shirt. “Dammit, Mel… just…”

“Not this time.” She leans in a little more, close enough that her lips brush Janice’s cheek, close enough that they find the edge of her mouth. “It’s not a crime to feel, Janice.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it should be.” She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to block out all these feelings that Mel thinks are not a crime. “Would make things a hell of a lot easier if it was.”

“Now, be nice. I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t rightly think you do either. Not if you’re honest.” She sighs, breath warm and tickling the corner of Janice’s lips. “It’s all right to miss people when they leave us. It’s all right to hurt. No-one’s gonna jump on you for that.”

“You’re wrong,” Janice whispers. Experience has taught her that.

“ _You’re_ wrong,” Mel counters. “Love is a beautiful thing, Janice. Ain’t no shame in feeling it for someone, even after they’re gone. But you can’t hide behind ’em forever. One day you’re gonna have to step out of their shadow. One day you’re gonna wake up and realise…”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare.”

“…that they’re not coming back.”

“To hell with you,” Janice snarls. She knows all this already, and she doesn’t need some sheltered, spoiled brat to tell her what she can and can’t feel. “Don’t talk about stuff you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand just fine and dandy.” Her eyes are so bright. It shouldn’t be possible, not in this barely-there half-light, but there they are. “You’re not the only one who lost her daddy, Janice Covington, and you’re not the only one who misses him neither.” She touches her chest, delicate but so damn fierce. “Right here. Every minute of every day, and I’m not ashamed to say so, not like you are.” Janice bristles, but Mel doesn’t give her a chance to argue. “We all got our losses… but you can’t keep expecting yours to walk through the door and thank you for what you’re doing. It’s not gonna happen.”

“I…” Her voice breaks. “I _know_ that.”

Mel kisses her cheek. Her lips tremble against Janice’s skin, igniting. “You did everything your daddy could’ve hoped for,” she whispers. “You finished what he started. Got his scrolls, cleared his name. You done did it all. Now for pity’s sake, let the poor man rest in peace.”

Janice shakes her head. He’s been a part of her life — the only part of it — for so damn long, she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do without his presence there. “The scrolls…”

“…deserve better,” Mel says, not even missing a beat. “They’re not flowers. They’re _history_. And history deserves a whole lot more than getting tossed over some dead man’s grave. Don’t you think?”

“I…”

It should sting, should cut, should _burn_ , but it doesn’t. She can’t find it in herself to be angry. Mel’s lips are still pressed against her skin, and Janice feels heat ignite where she touches, following the tracks left behind by her lipstick.

“He’s gone,” Mel says gently. “Don’t matter what he did, or how much he meant to you: he’s _gone_. Those scrolls, their stories… they’re not his any more, Janice. They’re _yours_.”

Janice swallows hard, not quite sure whether she wants to smile or cry or both. She doesn’t do either, but they feel so close that it almost consumes her. She’s never felt so exposed in her life, or so safe.

She looks up at Mel, taller and stronger and softer than she herself will ever be, Mel with her impossibly bright eyes and her skin and her feather-light kisses that may or may not be chaste. Mel, who is so open, so honest, so full of hope and faith, so lit up with joy and wonder and love, so much of so many things that Janice has never had or been or known. She was Xena for only a moment, but now that she’s herself again it seems like the two of them are worlds apart. Xena was a warrior down to her soul, hard and solid and focused; Mel is none of those things, but _oh_ , she is beautiful.

Mel believes in things Janice doesn’t understand. She believes in safe places, in friendship and love, in doing what’s good and doing what’s right; she believes in stepping out of other people’s shadows — her father’s, Xena’s, everyone’s — and living for herself. She believes in so much, _feels_ so much, and Janice has never felt so useless and so precious at the same time as she does right now, with Mel smiling down at her and leaving lipstick traces on her face.

 _‘They’re yours,’_ Mel says about the scrolls, but Janice has no intention of taking them now. She’s no damn thief.

“No,” she says. “They’re _ours_.”

—


End file.
